%v  *.. 


BERTRAMD  SMITH 
14O  Pacific 

LONG  BEACH, 
CAIJFn  R  NIA 


[See  p.  26 


Arthur  lay  at  her  feet  and  read  aloud  to  her  " 


THE  JUDGMENT 
OF  EVE 


BY 


MAY   SINCLAIR 


AUTHOR   OK 


Jffre" 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW   YORK   AND    LONDON 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 

M  C  M  V  I  I  I 


Copyright,  1907,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 

All  i-ifitts  rcsen'ed. 
Published  March,  1908. 


SRLF. 
URU 

513<?8I7 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

"  Arthur  lay  at   her  feet  and  read 

aloud    to   her  " Frontispiece 

" '  John,'   she   said,  suddenly,  '  did 

you  ever  kill  a  pig?' "...  Facing  p.  14 
11  Over  their  cocoa  he  developed  his 

theory  of  life  " "  40 

"'Quack,  quack  1'  said  Arthur,  and 

it  made  the  baby  nearly  choke 

with  laughter" "  48 

"  She  listened  without  a  scruple, 

justified  by  her  motherhood  "  70 

"  4  Now,  isn't  it  a  pity  for  you  to  be 

going,  dearie?"'  .....  "  80 
"  *  There  isn't  an  unsweet,  unsound 

spot  in  one  of  them'"  ...  "  102 
"  Thoughts  came  to  him,  terrible 

thoughts" "      H8 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  EVE 

* '  I  saw  a  ship  a-sailing,  a-sailing  on  the 
sea/  " — Nursery  Rhyme. 


THE  JUDGMENT  OF  EVE 


IT  was  market-day  in  Queningford. 
Aggie  Purcell  was  wondering  wheth- 
er Mr.  Hurst  would  look  in  that  after- 
noon at  the  Laurels  as  he  had  looked 
in  on  other  market-days.  Supposing 
he  did,  and  supposing  Mr.  Gatty  were 
to  look  in,  too,  why  then,  Aggie  said, 
it  would  be  rather  awkward.  But 
whether  awkward  for  herself,  or  for 
Mr.  Gatty,  or  Mr.  Hurst,  or  for  all  three 
of  them  together,  Aggie  was  unable  to 


\ 


explain  to  her  own  satisfaction  or  her 
mother's. 

In  Queningford  there  were  not  many 
suitors  for  a  young  lady  to  choose  from, 
but  it  was  understood  that,  such  as 
there  were,  Aggie  Parcel!  would  have 
her  pick  of  them.  The  other  young 
ladies  were  happy  enough  if  they 
could  get  her  leavings.  Miss  Purcell 
of  the  Laurels  was  by  common  con- 
sent the  prettiest,  the  best-dressed,  and 
the  best-mannered  of  them  all.  To  be 
sure,  she  could  only  be  judged  by 
Queningford  standards;  and,  as  the 
railway  nearest  to  Queningford  is  a 
terminus  that  leaves  the  small  gray 
town  stranded  on  the  borders  of  the 
unknown,  Queningford  standards  are 
not  progressive.  Neither  are  they  im- 
itative; for  imitation  implies  a  cer- 
tain nearness,  and  between  the  young 
ladies  of  Queningford  and  the  daugh- 


ters  of  the  county  there  is  an  immeas- 
urable void. 

The  absence  of  any  effective  rivalry 
made  courtship  a  rather  tame  and  un- 
interesting affair  to  Miss  Purcell.  She 
had  only  to  make  up  her  mind  whether 
she  would  take  the  wine-merchant's 
son,  or  the  lawyer's  nephew,  or  the 
doctor's  assistant,  or,  perhaps,  it  would 
be  one  of  those  mysterious  enthusiasts 
who  sometimes  came  into  the  neigh- 
borhood to  study  agriculture.  Any- 
how, it  was  a  foregone  conclusion  that 
each  of  these  doomed  young  men  must 
pass  through  Miss  Purcell's  door  before 
he  knocked  at  any  other. 

Pretty  Aggie  was  rather  a  long  time 
in  making  up  her  mind.  It  could  only 
be  done  by  a  slow  process  of  elimina- 
tion, till  the  embarrassing  train  of  her 
adorers  was  finally  reduced  to  two. 
At  the  age  of  five-and-twenty  (five- 


and-twenty  is  not  yotmg  in  Qwening- 
ford),  she  had  only  to  solve  the  com- 
paratively simple  problem:  whether 
it  would  be  Mr,  John  Hurst  or  Mr. 
Arthur  Gatty.  Mr.  John  Hurst  was 
a  young  farmer  just  home  from  Aus- 
tralia, who  had  bought  High  Farm, 
one  of  the  biggest  sheep-farming  lands 
in  the  Cotswolds.  Mr.  Arthur  Gatty 
was  a  young  clerk  in  a  solicitor's  office 
in  London;  he  was  down  at  Quening- 
ford  on  his  Easter  holiday,  staying 
with  cousins  at  the  County  Bank. 
Both  had  the  merit  of  being  young 
men  whom  Miss  Purcell  had  never 
seen  before.  She  was  so  tired  of  all 
the  young  men  whom  she  had  seen. 

Not  that  pretty  Aggie  was  a  flirt 
and  a  jilt  and  a  heartless  breaker  of 
hearts.  She  wouldn't  have  broken 
anybody's  heart  for  the  whole  world; 
it  would  have  hurt  her  own  too  much* 


She  had  never  jilted  anybody,  because 
she  had  never  permitted  herself  to 
become  engaged  to  any  of  those  young 
men.  As  for  flirting,  pretty  Aggie 
couldn't  have  flirted  if  she  had  tried. 
The  manners  of  Queningford  are  not 
cultivated  to  that  delicate  pitch  when 
flirtation  becomes  a  decorative  art, 
and  Aggie  would  have  esteemed  it 
vulgar.  But  Aggie  was  very  superior 
and  fastidious.  She  wanted  things 
that  no  young  man  in  Queningford 
would  ever  be  able  to  offer  her.  Aggie 
had  longings  for  music,  better  than 
Queningford's  best,  for  beautiful  pict- 
ures, and  for  poetry.  She  had  come 
across  these  things  at  school.  And 
now,  at  five-and-twenty,  she  couldn't 
procure  one  of  them  for  herself.  The 
arts  were  not  encouraged  by  her  family, 
and  she  only  had  an  "allowance"  on 
condition  that  she  would  spend  it  hon- 


y^-  • '  '•••''• 

orably  in  clothes.  Of  coarse,  at  five- 
and-twenty,  she  knew  all  the  "pieces  " 
and  songs  that  her  friends  knew,  and 
they  knew  all  hers.  She  had  read  all 
the  romantic  fiction  in  the  lending 
library,  and  all  the  works  of  light 
popular  science,  and  still  lighter  and 
more  popular  theology,  besides  bor- 
rowing all  the  readable  books  from  the 
vicarage.  She  had  exhausted  Quen- 
ingford.  It  had  no  more  to  give  her. 
Queningford  would  have  considered 
that  a  young  lady  who  could  do  all 
that  had  done  enough  to  prove  her 
possession  of  brains.  Not  that  Quen- 
ingford  had  ever  wanted  her  to  prove 
it;  its  young  men,  at  any  rate,  very 
much  preferred  that  she  should  leave 
her  brains  and  theirs  alone.  And 
Aggie  had  brains  enough  to  be  aware 
of  this;  and  being  a  very  well-be- 
haved young  lady,  and  anxious  to 


please,  she  had  never  mentioned  any 
.:>  of  her  small  achievements.  Nature, 
safeguarding  her  own  interests,  had 
whispered  to  Aggie  that  young  ladies 
who  live  in  Queningford  are  better 
without  intellects  that  show. 

Now,  John  Hurst  was  sadly  akin  to 
the  young  men  of  Queningford,  in  that 
he  was  unable  to  offer  her  any  of  the 
things  which,  Aggie  felt,  belonged  to 
the  finer  part  of  her  that  she  dared 
not  show.  On  the  other  hand,  he 
could  give  her  (beside  himself),  a  good 
income,  a  good  house,  a  horse  to  ride, 
and  a  trap  to  drive  in.  To  marry 
him,  as  her  mother  pointed  out  to  hert 
would  be  almost  as  good  as  "  getting 
in  with  the  county."  Not  that  Mrs. 
Purcell  offered  this  as  an  inducement. 
She  merely  threw  it  out  as  a  vague 
contribution  to  the  subject.  Aggie 
didn't  care  a  rap  about  the  county, 


as  her  mother  might  have  known;  bat, 
though  she  wouldn't  have  owned  it, 
she  had  been  attracted  by  John's  per- 
sonal appearance*  Glancing  otit  of  the 
parlor  window,  she  could  see  what  a 
gentleman  he  looked  as  he  crossed  the 
market-place  in  his  tweed  suit,  cloth 
cap,  and  leather  gaiters.  He  always 
had  the  right  clothes.  When  high  col- 
lars were  the  fashion,  he  wore  them 
very  high.  His  rivals  said  that  this 
superstitious  reverence  for  fashion  sug- 
gested a  revulsion  from  a  past  of  pre- 
historic savagery* 

Mr.  Gatty,  on  the  other  hand,  had 
a  soul  that  was  higher  than  any  collar. 
That,  Aggie  maintained,  was  why  he 
always  wore  the  wrong  sort.  There 
was  no  wrong  thing  Mr.  Gatty  could 
have  worn  that  Aggie  would  not  have 
found  an  excuse  for;  so  assiduously 
did  he  minister  to  the  finer  part  of 


her.  He  shared  all  her  tastes.  If  she 
admired  a  picture  or  a  piece  of  music 
or  a  book,  Mr.  Gatty  had  admired  it 
ever  since  he  was  old  enough  to  admire 
anything.  She  was  sure  that  he  ad- 
mired her  more  for  admiring  them. 
She  wasn't  obliged  to  hide  those  things 
from  Mr.  Gatty;  besides,  what  would 
have  been  the  use?  There  was  noth- 
ing in  the  soul  of  Aggie  that  Mr. 
Gatty  had  not  found  out  and  under- 
stoodt  and  she  felt  that  there  would 
be  no  limit  to  his  understanding. 

But  what  she  liked  best  about  him 
was  his  gentleness.  She  had  never 
seen  any  young  man  so  gentle  as  Mr. 
Gatty. 

And  his  face  was  every  bit  as  nice 
as  John's*  Nicer,  for  it  was  exces- 
sively refined,  and  John's  wasn't. 
You  could  see  that  his  head  was  full 
of  beautiful  thoughts,  whereas  John's 


head  was  fall  of  nothing  in  particular. 
Then,  Mr,  Gatty's  eyes  were  large  and 
spiritual;  yes,  spiritual  was  the  word 
for  them.  John's  eyes  were  small, 
and,  well,  spiritual  would  never  be  the 
word  for  them. 

Unfortunately,  John  had  been  on  the 
field  first,  before  the  unique  appearance 
of  Mr.  Gatty,  and  Aggie  felt  that  she 
was  bound  in  honor  to  consider  him. 
She  had  been  considering  him  for  some 
time  without  any  compulsion.  But 
when  things  began  to  look  so  serious 
that  it  really  became  a  question  which 
of  these  two  she  would  take,  she  called 
in  her  mother  to  help  her  to  decide. 

Mrs.  Purcell  was  a  comfortable,  fat 
lady,  who  loved  the  state  of  peace  she 
had  been  born  in,  had  married  into, 
and  had  never  lost.  Aggie  was  her 
eldest  daughter,  and  she  was  a  little 
vexed  to  think  that  she  might  have 


married  five  years  ago  if  she  hadn't 
been  so  particular.  Meanwhile,  what 
with  her  prettiness  and  her  superiority, 
she  was  spoiling  her  younger  sisters' 
chances.  None  of  her  rejected  suitors 
had  ever  turned  to  Kate  or  Susie  or 
Eliza.  They  were  well  enough,  poor 
girls,  but  as  long  as  Aggie  was  there 
they  couldn't  help  looking  plain.  But 
as  for  deciding  between  John  Hurst 
and  Mr.  Gatty,  Mrs.  Purcetl  couldn't 
do  it.  And  when  Aggie  said,  in  her 
solemn  way,  "  Mother,  I  think  it's 
coming;  and  I  don't  know  how  to 
choose  between  them,"  her  mother 
had  nothing  to  say  but: 

"  You  must  use  your  own  judgment, 
my  dear." 

"My  own  judgment?  I  wonder  if 
I  really  have  any?  You  see,  I  feel 
as  if  I  liked  them  both  about  the 
same." 


I     I 


''Then  just  say  to  yourself  that  if 
you  marry  John  Hurst  you'll  have  a 
big  house  in  the  country,  and  if  you 
marry  Mr.  Gatty  you'll  have  a  little 
one  in  town,  and  choose  between  the 
houses.  That  '11  be  easy  enough/' 

Secretly,  Mrs.  Purcell  was  all  for 
John  Hurst,  though  he  couldn't  be 
considered  as  exactly  Aggie's  equal  in 
station.  (They  were  always  saying 
how  like  a  gentleman  he  looked,  which 
showed  that  that  was  the  last  thing 
they  had  expected  of  him.  But  in 
Queningford  one  does  as  best  one  can.) 
For  all  John's  merits,  she  was  not 
going  to  force  him  on  Aggie  in  as  many 
words.  Mrs.  Purcell  deeply  desired 
her  daughter's  happiness,  and  she  said 
to  herself:  "  If  Aggie  marries  either 
of  them,  and  it  turns  out  unhappily, 
I  don't  want  her  to  be  able  to  say  I 
over-persuaded  her.  If  her  poor  father 


were  alive,  he'd  have  known  how  to 
advise  her." 

Then,  all  of  a  sadden,  without  any- 
body's advice,  John  was  eliminated, 
too.  It  was  not  Aggie's  doing.  In 
fact,  he  may  be  said  to  have  eliminated 
himself.  It  happened  in  this  way: 

Mr.  Hurst  had  been  taking  tea  with 
Aggie  one  market-day.  The  others 
were  all  out,  and  he  had  the  field  to 
himself.  She  always  remembered  just 
how  he  looked  when  he  did  it.  He 
was  standing  on  the  white  mohair 
rag  in  the  drawing-room,  and  was 
running  his  fingers  through  his  hair 
for  the  third  time.  He  had  been  tell- 
ing her  how  he  had  first  taken  up 
sheep-farming  in  Australia,  how  he'd 
been  a  farm-hand  before  that  in  Cali- 
fornia, how  he'd  always  set  his  mind 
on  that  one  thing — sheep -farming — 
because  he  had  been  born  and  bred 


in  the  Cotswolds.  Aggie's  dark-blue 
eyes  were  fixed  on  him,  serious  and 
intent.  That  flattered  himt  and  the 
gods,  for  his  undoing,  dowered  him 
with  a  disastrous  fluency. 

He  had  a  way  of  thrusting  out  his 
jaw  when  he  talked,  and  Aggie  noted 
the  singular  determination  of  his  chin. 
It  was  so  powerful  as  to  be  almost 
brutal.  (The  same  could  certainly  not 
be  said  of  Mr.  Gatty's.) 

Then,  in  the  light  of  his  reminis- 
cences, a  dreadful  thought  came  to  her. 

"  John/'  she  said,  suddenly,  "  did 
you  ever  kill  a  pig?" 

He  answered,  absently,  as  was  his 
way  when  directly  addressed. 

"A  pig?  Yes,  I've  killed  one  or 
two  in  California." 

She  drew  back  in  her  chair;  but,  as 
she  still  gazed  at  him,  he  went  on, 

well  pleased: 

14 


"'John,"  she  said,  suddenly,  'did  you  ever  kill  a  pig?' 


"I  can't  tell  you  much  about  Cali- 
fornia. It  was  in  Australia  I  learned 
sheep-farming." 

44  So,  of  course,"  said  Aggie,  frigid- 
ty*  "  you  killed  sheep,  too?" 

"  For  our  own  consumption — yes." 

He  said  it  a  little  haughtily.  He 
wished  her  to  understand  the  differ- 
ence between  a  grazier  and  a  butcher. 

"And  lambs?    Little  lambs?" 

"Well,  yes.  I'm  afraid  the  little 
lambs  had  to  go,  too,  sometimes." 

"  How  could  you  ?   How  could  you  ?" 

"How  could  I?  Well,  you  see,  I 
just  had  to.  I  couldn't  shirk  when 
the  other  fellows  didn't.  In  time  you 
get  not  to  mind." 

"Not  to  mind?" 

"Well,  I  never  exactly  enjoyed  do- 
ing it."  . 

"No.    But  you  did  it.    And 
didn't  mind." 


She  saw  him  steeped  in  butcheries, 
in  the  blood  of  little  Iambs,  and  her 
tender  heart  revolted  against  him. 
She  tried  to  persuade  herself  that  it 
was  the  lambs  she  minded  most;  bat 
it  was  the  pig  she  minded.  There  was 
something  so  low  about  killing  a  pig. 
It  seemed  to  mark  him. 

And  it  was  marked,  stained  abomi- 
nably, that  he  went  from  her  presence. 
He  said  to  himself:  "I've  dished  my- 
self now  with  my  silly  jabber.  Damn 
those  lambs  I" 

Young  Arthur  Gatty,  winged  by 
some  divine  intuition,  called  at  the 
Laurels  the  next  afternoon.  The  gods 
were  good  to  young  Arthur,  they 
breathed  upon  him  the  spirit  of  refine- 
ment and  an  indestructible  gentle- 
ness that  day.  There  was  no  jarring 
note  in  him.  He  rang  all  golden  to 
Aggie's  testing  touch. 


\    1 

I  I 


When  he  had  gone  a  great  calm  set- 
tled upon  her*  It  was  all  so  simple 
now.  Nobody  was  left  but  Arthur 
Gatty.  She  had  just  got  to  make  up 
her  mind  about  him  —  which  would 
take  a  little  time — and  then — either 
she  was  a  happy  married  woman  or, 
said  Aggie,  coyly,  a  still  happier  old 
maid  in  Queningford  forever. 

It  was  surprising  how  little  the  al- 
ternative distressed  her. 


n 


Ewas  the  last  week  in  April,  and 
Jr.    Gatty's    Easter    holiday    was 
near  its  end.    On  the  Monday,  very 
early  in  the  morning,  the  young  clerk 
would  leave  Queningford  for  town. 

By  Friday  his  manner  had  become, 
as  Susie  Ptircell  expressed  it,  "so 
marked  "  that  the  most  inexperienced 
young  lady  could  have  suffered  no 
doubt  as  to  the  nature  of  his  affections. 
But  no  sooner  had  Aggie  heard  that 
he  was  going  than  she  had  begun  to 
doubt,  and  had  kept  on  doubting 
(horribly)  up  to  Saturday  morning. 
All  Friday  she  had  been  bothering 


Susie.  Did  Susie  think  there  was  any 
one  in  town  whom  he  was  in  a  harry 
to  get  back  to?  Did  Susie  think  such 
a  man  as  Mr.  Gatty  could  think  twice 
about  a  girl  like  her?  Did  Susie  think 
he  only  thought  her  a  forward  little 
minx?  Or  did  she  think  he  really  <was 
beginning  to  care?  And  Susie  said: 
"You  goose!  How  do  I  know,  if  you 
don't?  He  hasn't  said  anything  to 
me." 

And  on  Saturday  morning  Aggie  all 
but  knew.  For  that  day  he  asked  per- 
mission to  take  her  for  a  drive,  having 
borrowed  a  trap  for  the  purpose. 

They  drove  up  to  a  northern  slope 
of  the  Cotswolds,  by  a  road  that  took 
them  past  High  Farm;  and  there  they 
found  John  Hurst  superintending  his 
sheep  -  shearing.  Aggie,  regardless  of 
his  feelings,  insisted  on  getting  out  of 
the  trap  and  looking  on.  John  talked 

'9 


all  the  time  to  the  shepherd,  while 
Arthur  talked  to  Aggie,  and  Aggie, 
cruel  little  Aggie,  made  remarks  about 
the  hard-heartedness  of  shearers. 

Arthur  ("that  bald-faced  young 
Cockney  snob,"  as  John  called  him) 
was  depressed  by  the  dominating  pres- 
ence of  his  rival  and  his  visible  effi- 
ciency. He  looked  long  and  thought- 
fully at  the  sheep-shearing. 

"Boni  pastoris  est,"  he  observed, 
"tondere  oves,  non  deglubere." 

Aggie  shook  her  pretty  head,  as 
much  as  to  say  Latin  was  beyond  her; 
and  he  was  kind  enough  to  translate. 
"It  is  the  part  of  a  good  shepherd  to 
shear,  not  flay,  the  sheep." 

"Is  that  from  Virgil?"  she  asked, 
looking  up  into  his  face  with  a  smile 
of  unstained  intellectual  innocence. 

A  terrific  struggle  arose  in  young 
Arthur's  breast.  If  he  said  it  was 


from  Virgil  (it  was  a  thousand  to  one 
against  her  knowing),  he  might  leap 
into  her  love  at  one  high  bound.  If 
he  said  he  didn't  know  where  it  came 
from  before  it  got  into  his  Latin  exer- 
cise, he  would  be  exactly  where  he 
was  before,  which,  he  reflected,  dis- 
mally, was  nowhere.  Whereas,  that 
fellow  Hurst  was  forever  on  the  spot. 

On  the  other  hand,  where  would  he 
be  if  —  if  —  supposing  that  she  ever 
found  him  out? 

A  thousand  to  one  against  it.  He 
who  aims  high  must  take  high  risks. 
He  took  them. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "it's  Virgil."  And 
he  added,  to  clinch  the  matter, "  From 
the  '  Georgics.' ' 

The  light  in  her  believing  eyes  told 
him  how  inspired  he  had  been. 

The  more  he  thought  of  it  the  more 
likely  it  seemed.  A  flash  of  reminis- 


cence  from  his  school-days  visited  him; 
he  remembered  that  Virgil  did  write 
some  things  called  "  Georgics,"  and 
that  Georgics  were  a  kind  of  pastoral, 
and  that  pastorals  always  had  sheep  in 
them,  and  shepherds.  It  was  a  good 
risk,  anyhow,  and  he  could  see  that 
it  was  justified  by  success.  When  his 
conscience  reproached  him  for  pre- 
tending he  knew  more  Latin  than  he 
did,  he  told  it  that  he  would  soon 
know  heaps.  If  all  by  himself,  in  cold 
blood,  and  for  no  particular  reason,  he 
could  keep  slogging  away  at  a  difficult 
language  evening  after  evening,  what 
couldn't  he  do  with  Aggie's  love  as 
an  incentive?  Why,  he  could  learn 
enough  Latin  to  read  Virgil  in  two 
months,  and  to  teach  Aggie,  too. 
And  if  any  one  had  asked  him  what 
good  that  would  do  either  of  them, 
he  would  have  replied,  contemptuous- 


ly,  that   some   things  were   ends 
themselves. 

Still,  he  longed  to  prove  his  quality 
in  some  more  honorable  way.  He 
called  at  the  Laurels  again  that  even- 
ing after  supper.  And,  while  Mrs. 
Purcell  affected  to  doze,  and  Susie,  as 
confidante,  held  Kate  and  Eliza  well 
in  play,  he  found  another  moment. 
With  a  solemnity  impaired  by  extreme 
nervousness,  he  asked  Miss  Purcell  if 
she  would  accept  a  copy  of  Browning's 
Poems,  which  he  had  ventured  to 
order  for  her  from  town.  He  hadn't 
brought  it  with  him,  because  he  wished 
to  multiply  pretexts  for  calling;  be- 
sides, as  he  said,  he  didn't  know  wheth- 
er she  would  really  carfe — 

Aggie  cared  very  much,  indeed,  and 
proved  it  by  blushing  as  she  said  so. 
She  had  no  need  now  to  ask  Susie  any- 
thing. She  knew. 


x,  ...;.:••...••.•.•.•.••.•-:-•:•:;•;-.,.•:•..•  •>  .-- 


And  yet,  in  spite  of  the  Browning 
and  the  Virgil,  it  was  surprising  how 
cool  and  tmexcited  she  felt  in  the  face 
of  her  knowledge,  now  she  had  it. 
She  felt  —  she  wouldn't  have  owned 
it — but  she  felt  something  remarka- 
bly like  indifference.  She  wondered 
whether  she  had  seemed  indifferent  to 
him  (the  thought  gave  her  a  pang  that 
she  had  not  experienced  when  John 
Hurst  laid  his  heart  out  to  be  trampled 
on).  She  wondered  whether  she  were 
indifferent,  really.  How  could  you 
tell  when  you  really  loved  a  man? 
She  had  looked  for  great  joy  and  glory 
and  uplifting.  And  they  hadn't  come. 
It  was  as  if  she  had  held  her  heart  in 
her  hand  and  looked  at  it,  and,  be- 
cause she  felt  no  fluttering,  had  ar- 
gued that  love  had  never  touched  it; 
for  she  did  not  yet  know  that  love's 
deepest  dwelling-place  is  in  the  quiet 


*••; 


heart.  Aggie  had  never  loved  before, 
and  she  thought  that  she  was  in  the 
sanctuary  on  Saturday,  when  she  was 
only  standing  on  the  threshold,  wait- 
ing for  her  hour. 

It  came,  all  of  a  sudden,  on  the  Sun- 
day. 

Aggie's  memory  retained  every  de- 
tail of  that  blessed  day  —  a  day  of 
spring  sunshine,  warm  with  the  breath 
of  wall-flowers  and  violets.  Arthur, 
walking  in  the  garden  with  her,  was 
so  mixed  up  with  those  delicious  scents 
that  Aggie  could  never  smell  them 
afterwards  without  thinking  of  him. 
A  day  that  was  not  only  all  wall- 
flowers and  violets,  but  all  Arthur. 
For  Arthur  called  first  thing  before 
breakfast  to  bring  her  the  Browning, 
and  first  thing  after  breakfast  to  go 
with  her  to  church,  and  first  thing  after 
dinner  to  take  her  for  a  walk. 


They  went  into  the  low-lying  Quen- 
ingford  fields  beside  the  river.  They 
took  the  Browning  with  them;  Arthur 
carried  it  tinder  his  arm.  In  his  loose, 
gray  overcoat  and  soft  hat  he  looked 
like  a  poet  himself,  or  a  Socialist,  or 
Something.  He  always  looked  like 
Something.  As  for  Aggie,  she  had 
never  looked  prettier  than  she  looked 
that  day.  He  had  never  known  before 
how  big  and  blue  her  eyes  were,  nor 
that  her  fawn-colored  hair  had  soft 
webs  of  gold  all  over  it.  She,  in  her 
clean  new  clothes,  was  like  a  young 
Spring  herself,  all  blue  and  white  and 
green,  dawn -rose  and  radiant  gold. 
The  heart  of  the  young  man  was  quick 
with  love  of  her. 

They  fotind  a  sheltered  place  for 
Aggie  to  sit  in,  while  Arthur  lay  at  her 
feet  and  read  aloud  to  her.  He  read 
"Abt  Vogler,"  "Prospice,"  selections 


from  "The  Death  in  the  Desert "  (the 
day  being  Sunday);  and  then,  with 
a  pause  and  a  shy  turning  of  the 
leaves,  and  a  great  break  in  his 
voice,  "Oh,  Lyric  Love,  Half  Angel 
and  Half  Bird/'  through  to  the 
end. 

Their  hearts  beat  very  fast  in  the 
silence  afterwards. 

He  turned  to  the  fly-leaf  where  he 
had  inscribed  her  name. 

44 1  should  like  to  have  written  some- 
thing more.  May  I?" 

"Oh  yes.  Please  write  anything 
you  like." 

And  now  the  awful  question  for 
young  Arthur  was:  Whatever  should 
he  write?  "With  warmest  regards" 
was  too  warm;  "kind  regards  "  were 
too  cold;  "good  wishes  "  sounded  like 
Christmas  or  a  birthday;  "remem- 
aces  "  implied  that  things  were  at 


an  end  instead  of  a  beginning.  All 
these  shades,  the  warmth,  the  reti- 
cence, the  inspired  audacity,  might  be 
indicated  under  the  veil  of  verse.  If 
he  dared — 

"I  wish/'  said  Aggie,  "you'd  write 
me  something  of  your  own/'  (She 
knew  he  did  it.) 

What  more  could  he  want  than  that 
she  should  divine  him  thus? 

For  twenty  minutes  (he  thought 
they  were  only  seconds),  young  Arthur 
lay  flat  on  his  stomach  and  brooded 
over  the  Browning.  Aggie  sat  quiet 
as  a  mouse,  lest  the  rustle  of  her  gown 
should  break  the  divine  enchantment. 
At  last  it  came. 

"Dear,  since  you  loved  this  book,  it 
is  your  own — "  That  was  how  it  be- 
gan. Long  afterwards  Arthur  would 
turn  pale  when  he  thought  of  how  it 
went  on;  for  it  was  wonderful  how 


bad  it  was,  especially  the  lines  that 
had  to  rhyme* 

He  did  not  know  it  when  he  gave 
her  back  the  book. 

She  read  it  over  and  over  again, 
seeing  how  bad  it  was,  and  not  caring. 
For  her  the  beginning,  middle,  and  end 
of  that  delicate  lyric  were  in  the  one 
word  "Dear/' 

"Do  you  mind?"  He  had  risen 
and  was  standing  over  her  as  she 
read. 

"Mind?" 

"What  I've  called  you?" 

She  looked  up  suddenly.  His  face 
met  hers,  and  before  she  knew  it 
Aggie's  initiation  came. 

"Ah,"  said  Arthur,  rising  solemn 
from  the  consecration  of  the  primal 
kiss,  and  drawing  himself  up  like 
a  man  for  the  first  time  aware  of 
his  full  stature,  "that  makes  thai 


<  i^watMM^jHBBNl 

y 


pretty    poor    stuff,    doesn't 


seem 
it?" 

Young  Arthur  had  jtist  looked 
upon  Love  himself,  and  for  that 
moment  his  vision  was  purged  of 
vanity* 

"Not  Browning?"  asked  Aggie,  a 
little  anxiously. 

"No —  Not  Browning.  Me.  Brown- 
ing could  write  poetry.  I  can't.  I 
know  that  now." 

And  she  knew  it,  too;  but  that 
made  no  difference.  It  was  not  for 
his  poetry  she  loved  him. 

"And  so,"  said  her  mother,  after 
Arthur  had  stayed  for  tea  and  supper, 
and  said  his  good-bye  and  gone — "so 
that's  the  man  you've  been  waiting 
for  all  this  time?" 

"Yes,  that's  the  man  I've  been 
waiting  for,"  said  Aggie. 

Three  days  later  Queningford  knew 


that  Aggie  was  going  to  marry  Arthur 
Gatty,  and  that  John  Hurst  was  going 
to  marry  Susie. 

Susie  was  not  pretty,  bat  she  had   I 
eyes  like  Aggie's. 


AHTER  all,  Susie  was  married  be- 
fore her  eldest  sister;  for  Aggie 
had  to  wait  till  Arthur's  salary  rose. 
He  thought  it  was  going  to  rise  at 
midsummer,  or  if  not  at  midsummer, 
then  at  Michaelmas.  But  midsummer 
and  Michaelmas  passed,  Christmas  and 
Easter,  too,  and  Arthur's  salary  showed 
no  sign  of  rising.  He  daren't  tell  Ag- 
gie that  he  had  been  obliged  to  leave 
off  reading  Latin  in  the  evenings, 
and  was  working  feverishly  at  short- 
hand in  order  to  increase  his  efficiency. 
His  efficiency  increased,  but  not  his 
salary. 


Meanwhile  he  spent  all  his  holidays 
at  Queningford,  and  Aggie  had  been 
twice  to  town.  They  saw  so  little  of 
each  other  that  every  meeting  was  a 
divine  event,  a  spiritual  adventure. 
If  each  was  not  exactly  an  undiscov- 
ered country  to  the  other,  there  was 
always  some  territory  left  over  from 
last  time,  endlessly  alluring  to  the  pil- 
grim lover.  Whenever  Arthur  found 
in  Aggie's  mind  a  little  bare  spot  that 
needed  cultivating,  he  planted  there  a 
picture  or  a  poem,  that  instantly  took 
root,  and  began  to  bloom  as  it  had 
never  (to  his  eyes)  bloomed  in  any 
other  soil.  Aggie,  for  her  part,  yielded 
all  the  treasure  of  her  little  kingdom 
as  tribute  to  the  empire  that  had 
won  her. 

Many  things  were  uncertain,  the 
rise  of  Arthur's  salary  among  them; 
but  of  one  thing  they  were  sure,  that 


they  would  lead  the  intellectual  life 
together.  Whatever  happened,  they 
would  keep  it  tip. 

They  were  keeping  it  op  as  late  as 
August,  when  Arthur  came  down  for 
the  Bank  Holiday.  He  was  still  en- 
thusiastic, but  uncertainty  had  dimmed 
his  hope.  Marriage  had  become  a 
magnificent  phantasm,  superimposed 
upon  a  dream,  a  purely  supposititious 
rise  of  salary.  The  prospect  had  re- 
moved itself  so  far  in  time  that  it  had 
parted  with  its  substance,  like  an  ob- 
ject retired  modestly  into  space. 

They  were  walking  together  in  the 
Queningford  fields,  when  Arthur  stop- 
ped suddenly  and  turned  to  her. 

44 Aggie/'  he  said,  "supposing,  after 
all,  we  can  never  marry?" 

"Well,"  said  Aggie,  calmly,  "if  we 
don't  we  shall  still  lead  our  real  life 
together." 


f 


"But  how,  if  we're  separated?" 
"It  would  go  on  just  the  same. 
But  we  sha'n't  be  separated.  I  shall 
get  something  to  do  in  town  and  live 
there.  I'll  be  a  clerk,  or  go  into  a 
shop — or  something." 

"My  darling,  that  would  never 
do." 

"Wouldn't  it,  though!" 
"I  couldn't  let  you  do  it/' 
"Why   ever   not?    We   should   see 
each  other  every  evening,  and  every 
Saturday    and    Sunday.    We    should 
always   be    learning   something   new, 
and  learning  it  together.    We  should 
have  a  heavenly  time." 

But  Arthur  shook  his  head  sadly. 
"It  wouldn't  work,  my  sweetheart. 
We  aren't  made  like  that." 

"I  am,"  said  Aggie,  stoutly,  and 
there  was  silence. 
"Anyhow,"     she     said,     presently, 


"whatever  happens,  we're  not  going 
to  let  it  drop/' 

"  Rather  not/'  said  he,  with  incor- 
ruptible enthusiasm. 

Then,  just  because  he  had  left  off 
thinking  about  it,  he  was  told  that  in 
the  autumn  of  that  year  he  might 
expect  a  rise. 

And  in  the  autumn  they  were  mar- 
ried. 

Aggie  left  the  sweet  gardens,  the 
white  roads  and  green  fields  of  Quen- 
ingford,  to  live  in  a  side  street  in 
Camden  Town,  in  a  creaking  little 
villa  built  of  sulphurous  yellow  brick 
furred  with  soot. 

They  had  come  back  from  their 
brilliant  fortnight  on  the  south  coast, 
and  were  standing  together  in  the 
atrocious  bow-window  of  their  little 
sitting-room  looking  out  on  the 

street.      A    thick    gray     rain    was 

36 


falling,  and  a  dust  -  cart  was  in 
sight. 

"Aggie,"  he  said,  "I'm  afraid  you'll 
miss  the  country." 

She  said  nothing;  she  was  lost  in 
thought. 

"It  looks  rather  a  brute  of  a  place, 
doesn't  it?  But  it  won't  be  so  bad 
when  the  rain  clears  off.  And  you 
know,  dear,  there  are  the  museums 
and  picture  -  galleries  in  town,  and 
there'll  be  the  concerts,  and  lectures 
on  all  sorts  of  interesting  subjects, 
two  or  three  times  a  week.  Then 
there's  our  Debating  Society  at  Hamp- 
stead — just  a  few  of  us  who  meet  to- 
gether to  discuss  big  questions.  Every 
month  it  meets,  and  you'll  get  to  know 
all  the  intellectual  people — " 

Aggie  nodded  her  head  at  each  ex- 
citing item  of  the  programme  as  he 
reeled  it  off.  His  heart  smote  him;  he 


felt  that  he  hadn't  prepared  her  prop- 
erly for  Camden  Town*  He  thought 
she  was  mourning  the  first  perishing 
of  her  illusions. 

His  voice  fell,  humbly.  "And  I 
really  think,  in  time,  you  know,  you 
won't  find  it  quite  so  bad." 

She  turned  on  him  the  face  of  one 
risen  rosy  from  the  embraces  of  her 
dream.  She  put  a  hand  on  each  of 
his  shoulders,  and  looked  at  him  with 
shining  eyes. 

"Oh,  Arthur,  dear,  it's  all  too  beau- 
tiful. I  couldn't  say  anything,  be- 
cause I  was  so  happy.  Come,  and 
let's  look  at  everything  all  over  again." 

And  they  went,  and  looked  at  every- 
thing all  over  again,  reviving  the  de- 
light that  had  gone  to  the  furnishing 
of  that  innocent  interior.  She  cried 
out  with  joy  over  the  cheap  art  serges, 
the  brown -paper  backgrounds,  the 


._.     . 


blue-and-gray  drugget,  the  oak  chairs 
with  their  rash  bottoms,  the  Burne- 
Jones  photogravures,  the  "Hope " 
and  the  "Love  Leading  Life,"  and 
the  "Love  Triumphant."  Their  home 
wotild  be  the  home  of  a  material  pov- 
erty, but  to  Aggie's  mind  it  was  also 
a  shrine  whose  austere  beauty  sheltered 
the  priceless  spiritual  ideal* 

Their  wedded  ardor  flamed  when  he 
showed  her  for  the  tenth  time  his 
wonderful  contrivance  for  multiplying 
bookshelves,  as  their  treasures  accumu- 
lated year  by  year.  They  spoke  with 
confidence  of  a  day  when  the  shelves 
would  reach  from  floor  to  ceiling,  to 
meet  the  inevitable  expansion  of  the 
intellectual  life. 

They  went  out  that  very  evening 
to  a  lecture  on  "Appearance  and 
Reality,"  an  inspiring  lecture.  They 
lived  in  it  again  (sitting  over  their 


cocoa  in  the  tiny  dining-room ),  each 
kindling  the  other  with  the  same 
sacred  flame.  She  gazed  with  adora- 
tion at  his  thin,  flushed  face,  as,  il- 
lumined by  the  lecture,  he  developed 
with  excitement  his  theory  of  life. 

"Only  think/'  he  said,  "how  people 
wreck  their  lives  just  because  they 
don't  know  the  difference  between  ap- 
pearance and  reality!  Now  we  do 
know.  We're  poor;  but  we  don't 
care  a  rap,  because  we  know,  you  and 
I,  that  that  doesn't  matter.  It's  the 
immaterial  that  matters." 

Spiritually  he  flamed. 

"I  wouldn't  change  with  my  boss, 
though  he's  got  five  thousand  a  year. 
He's  a  slave — a  slave  to  his  carriage 
and  horses,  a  slave  to  his  house,  a 
slave  to  the  office — " 

"So  are  you.  You  work  hard 
enough." 


"  Over  their  cocoa  he  developed  his  theory  of  life " 


"I  work  harder  than  he  does.  But 
I  keep  myself  detached/' 

"Some  more  cocoa,  dearie?" 

"Rather.  Yes,  three  lumps,  please. 
Just  think  what  we  can  get  out  of  life, 
you  and  I,  with  our  tiny  income.  We 
get  what  we  put  into  it — and  that's 
something  literally  priceless,  and  we 
mustn't  let  it  go.  Whatever  happens 
we  must  stick  to  it.*' 

"Nothing  can  take  it  away  from 
us,"  said  Aggie,  rapt  in  her  dream. 

"No;  no  outside  thing  can.  But, 
Aggie  —  we  can  take  it  from  each 
other,  if  we  let  ourselves  get  slack. 
Whatever  we  do,"  he  said,  solemnly, 
"we  mustn't  get  slack.  We  must  keep 
it  up." 

"Yes,"  said  Aggie,  "we  must  keep 
it  up." 

They  had  pledged  themselves  to 
that. 


IV 


NO  fowler  spreads  his  snares  in 
sight  of  those  innocent  birds 
that  perch  on  the  tree  of  life  in  para- 
dise. As  Arthur's  soul  (it  was  a  vain 
soul)  preened  its  wings  before  her, 
Aggie  never  inquired  whether  the 
brilliance  of  its  plumage  was  its  own, 
or  merely  common  to  all  feathered 
things  in  the  pairing  season.  Young 
Arthur's  soul  was  like  a  lark,  singing 
in  heaven  its  delirious  nuptial  hymn. 
Aggie  sat  snug  in  her  nest  and  mar- 
velled at  her  mate,  at  the  mounting  of 
his  wings,  the  splendid  and  untiring  ar- 
dors of  his  song.  Nor  was  she  alarmed 


at  his  remarkable  disappearance  into 
the  empyrean.  Lost  to  sight  he  might 
be,  but  she  could  count  on  his  swift, 
inevitable  descent  into  the  nest. 

The  nest  itself  was  the  most  won- 
derful nest  a  bird  ever  sat  in.  The 
two  were  so  enthusiastic  over  every- 
thing that  they  delighted  even  in  that 
dreadful,  creaking,  yellow  villa.  Its 
very  vices  entertained  them.  When 
it  creaked  they  sat  still  and  looked  at 
each  other,  waiting  for  it  to  do  it 
again.  No  other  house  ever  possessed 
such  ungovernable  and  mysterious 
spontaneities  of  sound.  It  was  some- 
times, they  said,  as  if  the  villa  were 
alive.  And  when  all  the  wood-work 
shrank,  and  the  winter  winds  stream- 
ed through  their  sitting-room,  Aggie 
said  nothing  but  put  sand-bags  in  the 
window  and  covered  them  with  art 
serge. 


Her  mother  declared  that  she  had 
never  stayed  in  a  more  inconvenient 
house;  bat  Aggie  wouldn't  hear  a 
word  against  it.  It  was  the  house 
that  Arthur  had  chosen.  She  was 
sorry,  she  said,  if  her  mother  didn't 
like  it.  Mrs.  Purcell  was  sorry,  too, 
because  she  could  not  honestly  say 
that,  in  the  circumstances,  she  enjoyed 
a  visit  to  Aggie  and  her  husband. 
They  made  her  quite  uncomfortable, 
the  pair  of  them.  Their  ceaseless  ac- 
tivities and  enthusiasms  bewildered 
her.  «She  didn't  care  a  rap  about  the 
lectures,  and  thought  they  were  mad 
to  go  traipsing  all  the  way  to  Hamp- 
stead  to  harangue  about  things  they 
could  have  discussed  just  as  well — 
now,  couldn't  they? — at  home.  Ag- 
gie, she  said,  would  become  com- 
letely  undomesticated.  Mrs.  Purcell 
was  never  pressed  to  stay  longer  than 


a  week.    They  had  no  further  need 
her,  those  two  sublime  young  egoists,    * 
fused  by  their  fervors  into  one  egoist, 
sublimer  still.    Mrs.  Purcefl  was  a  sad 
hinderance  to  the  intellectual  life,  and 
they  were  glad  when  she  was  gone. 

Heavens,  how  they  kept  it  up! 
All  through  the  winter  evenings,  when 
they  were  not  going  to  lectures,  they 
were  reading  Browning  aloud  to  each 
other.  For  pure  love  of  it,  for  its  own  ] 
sake,  they  said.  But  did  Aggie  tire  1 
on  that  high  way,  she  kept  it  up  for  | 
Arthur's  sake;  did  Arthur  flag,  he 
kept  it  up  for  hers. 

Then,  in  the  spring,  there  came  a 
time  when  Aggie  couldn't  go  to  lect- 
ures any  more.  Arthur  went,  and 
brought  her  back  the  gist  of  them, 
lest  she  should  feel  herself  utterly  cut 
off.  The  intellectual  life  had,  even 
for  him,  become  something  of  a  strug- 


<w 

gle.    But,  tired  as  he  sometimes  was,    ] 
she  made  him  go,  sending,  as  it  were, 
her  knight  into  the  battle. 

"Because  now,"  she  said,  "we  shall   ' 
have  to  keep  it  up  more  than  ever. 
For  them,  you  know." 


" '  I  saw  a  ship  a-sailing,  a-sailing  on  the  sea, 
And  it  was  full  of  pretty  things  for  Baby 
and  for  me/" 


A'rGIE  always  sang  that  song  the 
same  way.  When  she  sang  "  for 
Baby"  she  gave  the  baby  a  little  j|j 
squeeze  that  made  him  laugh;  when 
she  sang  "for  me"  she  gave  Arthur 
a  little  look  that  made  him  smile. 

'There  were   raisins   in    the    cabin,  sugared 
kisses  in  the  hold.'" 

Here  the  baby  was  kissed  crescendo, 
prestissimo,  till  he  laughed  more  than 


" '  The    sails  were    made    of    silver    and    the 

masts  were  made  of  gold. 
The  captain  was  a  duck,  and  he  cried — ' " 

"Quack,  quack!"  said  Arthur.  It 
was  Daddy's  part  in  the  great  play, 
and  it  made  the  baby  nearly  choke 
with  laughter. 

Arthur  was  on  the  floor,  in  a  post- 
ure of  solemn  adoration  somewhat 
out  of  keeping  with  his  utterances. 

"Oh,  Baby!"  cried  Aggie,  "what 
times  we'll  have  when  Daddy's  ship 
comes  home!" 

The  intellectual  life  had  lapsed; 
but  only  for  a  period.  Not  for  a 
moment  could  they  contemplate  its 
entire  extinction.  It  was  to  be  re- 
sumed with  imperishable  energy  later 
on;  they  had  pledged  themselves  to 
that.  Meanwhile  they  had  got  be- 
yond the  stage  when  Aggie  would  call 
to  her  husband  a  dozen  times  a  day: 


* 


" '  Quack,  quack  1'  said  Arthur,  and  it  made  the  baby  nearly 
choke  with  laughter" 


<: 


""I 


"Oh,  Arthur,  look!  If  you  poke  him 
in  the  check  like  that,  he'll  smile." 

And  Arthur  would  poke  him  in  the 
cheek,  very  gently,  and  say:  "Why,  I 
never!  What  a  ram  little  beggar  he 
is!  He's  got  some  tremendous  joke 
against  tis,  you  bet/' 

And  a  dialogue  like  this  would  fol- 
low: "Oh,  Arthur,  look,  look,  look, 
at  his  little  feet!" 

"I  say — do  you  think  you  ought 
to  squeeze  him  like  that?" 

"Oh,  he  doesn't  mind*  He  likes  it. 
Doesn't  he?  My  beauty — my  bird!" 

"He'll  have  blue  eyes,  Aggie." 

"No,  they'll  change;  they  always 
do.  And  his  nose  is  just  like  yours." 

"I  only  wish  I  had  his  head  of  hair." 

It  was  a  terrible  day  for  Arthur 
when  the  baby's  head  of  hair  began  to 
come  off,  till  Aggie  told  him  it  always 
did  that,  and  it  would  grow  again. 


To-day  they  were  celebrating  the 
first  birthday  of  the  little  son.  At 
sapper  that  night  a  solemn  thought 
came  to  Aggie. 

44  Oh,  Arthur,  only  think.  On  Arty's 
birthday "  (they  had  been  practising 
calling  him  "Arty"  for  the  last  fort- 
night) "he  won't  be  a  baby  any 
more." 

"Never  mind;  Arty's  little  sister 
will  be  having  her  first  birthday  very 
soon  after."  , 

Aggie  bltished  for  pure  joy,  and 
smiled.  She  hadn't  thought  of  that. 
But  how  sad  it  would  be  for  poor  baby 
not  to  be  the  baby  any  more! 

Arthur  gave  an  anxious  glance  at 
Aggie  in  her  evening  blouse.  His 
mind  was  not  set  so  high  but  what 
he  liked  to  see  his  pretty  wife  wearing 
pretty  gowns.  And  some  of  the  money 
that  was  to  have  gone  to  the  buying 


of  books  had  passed  over  to  the  gay 
drapers  of  Camden  Town  and  Hollo- 
way. 

"You  know  what  it  means,  dear? 
We  shall  have  to  live  more  carefully." 

"Oh  yes,  of  coarse  I  know  that." 

"Do  you  mind?" 

"Mind?"  She  didn't  know  what 
he  was  talking  about,  but  she  gave 
a  sad,  foreboding  glance  at  the  well- 
appointed  sapper-table,  where  coffee 
and  mutton  -  chops  had  succeeded 
cocoa.  For  Arthur  had  had  a  rise  of 
salary  that  year;  and  if  Aggie  had 
a  weakness,  it  was  that  she  loved  to 
get  him  plenty  of  nice,  nourishing 
things  to  eat. 

"We  sha'n't  be  able  to  have  quite 
so  many  nice  things  for  supper.  Shall 
you  mind?" 

"Of  course  I  sha'n't.  Do  you  take 
me  for  a  pig?"  said  Arthur,  gayly. 


He  hadn't  thought  of  it  in  that  light. 
Wasn't  he  always  saying  that  it  was 
the  immaterial  that  mattered?  Bat 
it  had  just  come  over  him  that  pretty 
Aggie  wouldn't  have  so  many  pretty 
clothes  to  wear,  because,  of  course, 
whatever  money  they  could  save 
must  go  to  the  buying  of  books  and 
the  maintenance  of  the  intellectual 
life.  For  the  home  atmosphere  was 
to  be  part  of  the  children's  education. 
"We  will  have  lots  of  nice  things," 
said  Aggie,  "won't  we,  when  Daddy's 
ship  comes  home?" 


D1 


VI 

kADDVS  ship  never  did  come 
home* 

"Quack,  quack!"  said  Aggie,  and 
three  shrill  voices  echoed  her. 

Aggie  had  to  be  the  dock  herself 
now;  for  Daddy  had  long  ago  given 
up  his  part  in  the  spirited  drama. 

They  had  been  married  six  years, 
and  Aggie  had  had  six  children.  There 
was  Arty  and  Catty  and  "Willie  and 
Dick  and  Emmy  (the  baby  of  the 
year);  and  a  memory  like  a  sword  in 
her  mother's  heart,  which  was  all  that 
was  left  of  little  Barbara,  who  had 
come  after  Catty. 


It  seemed  as  if  there  was  not  much 
left  of  Aggie,  either.  Her  delicate 
individuality  had  shown  signs  of  perish- 
ing as  the  babies  came,  and  the  faster 
it  perished  the  faster  they  took  its 
place.  At  each  coming  there  went 
some  part  of  pretty  Aggie's  prettiness; 
first  the  rose  from  her  cheeks,  then  the 
gold  from  her  hair,  till  none  of  her 
radiance  was  left  but  the  blue  light 
of  her  eyes,  and  that  was  fainter. 
Then,  after  Barbara's  death,  her 
strength  went,  too;  and  now,  at  the 
end  of  the  day  she  was  too  tired  to 
do  anything  btit  lie  on  the  sofa  and 
let  the  children  crawl  all  over  her, 
moaning  sometimes  when  they  tram- 
pled deep.  Then  Arthur  would  stir 
in  his  arm-chair  and  look  irritably  at 
her.  He  still  loved  Aggie  and  the 
children,  but  not  their  noises. 

The   evenings,    once   prolonged   by 


gas-light  and  enthusiasm  to  a  glorious 
life,  had  shrank  to  a  two  hours'  sitting 
after  sapper*  They  never  went  any- 
where now.  Picture-galleries  and  con- 
cert-halls knew  them  no  more.  The 
Debating  Society  at  Hampstead  had 
long  ago  missed  the  faithful,  insepara- 
ble pair — the  pair  who  never  spoke, 
who  sat  in  the  background  listening 
with  shy,  earnest  faces,  with  inno- 
cence that  yearned,  wide-eyed,  after 
wisdom,  while  it  followed,  with  pas- 
sionate subservience,  the  inane.  Ar- 
thur had  proved  himself  powerless  to 
keep  it  up.  If  an  archangel's  trump 
had  announced  a  lecture  for  that  even- 
ing, it  would  not  have  roused  him 
from  his  apathy. 

And  as  they  never  went  to  see  any- 
body, nobody  ever  came  to  see  them. 
The  Hampstead  ladies  found  Aggie 
dull  and  her  conversation  monoto- 


nous.  It  was  all  about  Arthur  and  the 
babies;  and  those  ladies  cared  little 
for  Arthur,  and  for  the  babies  less. 
Of  Aggie's  past  enthusiasm  they  said 
that  it  was  nothing  but  a  pose.  Time 
had  revealed  her,  the  sunken  soul  of 
patience  and  of  pathos,  the  beast  of 
burden,  the  sad-eyed,  slow,  and  gray. 
The  spirit  of  the  place,  too,  had 
departed,  leaving  a  decomposing  and 
discolored  shell.  The  beloved  yellow 
villa  had  disclosed  the  worst  side  of 
its  nature.  The  brown  wall-paper 
had  peeled  and  blistered,  like  an  un- 
wholesome skin.  The  art  serge  had 
faded;  the  drugget  was  dropping  to 
pieces,  worn  with  many  feet;  the 
wood-work  had  shrunk  more  than 
ever,  and  draughts,  keen  as  knives, 
cut  through  the  rooms  and  passages. 
The  "Hope"  and  the  "Love  Leading 
Life"  and  the  "Love  Triumphant," 


FT 


like  imperishable  frescos  in  a  decay- 
ing sanctuary,  were  pitiful  survivals, 
testifying  to  the  death  of  dreams. 

Saddest  of  all,  the  bookshelves,  that 
were  to  have  shot  up  to  the  ceiling, 
had  remained  three  feet  from  the 
floor,  showing  the  abrupt  arrest  of  the 
intellectual  life. 

It  was  evident  that  they  hadn't 
kept  it  up. 

If  anything,  Arthur  was  more  ef- 
faced, more  obliterated,  than  his  wife. 
He,  whose  appearance  had  once  sug- 
gested a  remarkable  personality,  a 
poet  or  a  thinker,  now  looked  what  he 
had  become,  a  depressed  and  harassed 
city  clerk,  no  more.  His  face  was 
dragged  by  deep  downward  lines  that 
accentuated  its  weakness.  A  thin 
wisp  of  colorless  mustache  sheltered, 
without  concealing,  the  irritability  of 
his  mouth.  Under  his  high,  sallow 


forehead,  his  eyes,  once  so  spiritual, 
looked  out  on  his  surroundings  with 
more  indifference  than  discontent. 
His  soul  fretted  him  no  longer;  it 
had  passed  beyond  strenuousness  to 
the  peace  of  dulness.  Only  the  sounds 
made  by  his  wife  and  children  had 
power  to  agitate  him. 

He  was  agitated  now. 

"That  will  do/'  he  said,  looking  up 
from  the  magazine  he  was  trying  to 
read,  not  because  it  interested  him  in 
the  least,  but  because  it  helped  to 
keep  the  noises  out. 

But  the  children  were  clamoring  for 
an  encore.  "  Again,  again  V '  they  cried. 
"Oh  Mummy,  do  do  it  again!" 

"Hsh-sh-sh.  Daddy's  reading/' 
And  Aggie  drew  the  children  closer  to 
her,  and  went  on  with  the  rhyme  in 
her  sad,  weak  whisper. 

"If  you  must  read  aloud  to  them, 


& 


for  goodness'  sake  speak  up  and  have 
done  with  it.  I  can't  stand  that 
whispering/' 

Aggie  put  down  the  picture-book, 
and  Arty  seized  one  half  and  Catty 
the  other,  and  they  tagged,  till  Catty 
let  go  and  hit  Arty,  and  Arty  hit  Catty 
back  again,  and  Catty  howled. 

"Can't  you  keep  those  children 
quiet?" 

"Oh,  Arty,  shame!  to  hurt  your  lit- 
tle sister!" 

At  that  Arty  howled  louder  than 
Catty. 

Arthur  sat  up  in  his  chair. 

"Leave  the  room,  sir!  Clear  out 
this  instant!"  His  weak  face  looked 
weaker  in  its  inappropriate  assumption 
of  command. 

"Do  you  hear  what  I  say,  sir?" 

Arty  stopped  crying,  and  steadied 
his  quivering  infant  mouth  till  it 


expressed 
tion. 

"I'll  g-g-g-go  for  Mummy.  But 
I  w-w-w- won't  go  for  Daddy.  I 
doesh'n't  'ike  him/* 

"  Hsh-sh  —  poor  Daddy  —  he's  so 
tired.  Run  away  to  the  nursery, 
darlings,  all  of  you/' 

"I  can't  think  why  on  earth  you 
have  them  down  here  at  this  time," 
said  their  father,  as  the  door  slammed 
behind  the  last  retreating  child. 

"My  dear,  you  said  yourself  it's  the 
only  time  you  have  for  seeing  them. 
I'm  sure  you  don't  get  much  of  them." 

"I  get  a  great  deal  too  much  some- 
times." 

"If  we  only  had  a  big  place  for  them 
to  run  about  in — " 

"What's  the  use  of  talking  about 
things  we  haven't  got,  and  never  shall 

have?    Is  supper  ready?" 

60 


She  raised  herself  heavily  from  her 
sofa,  and  went  to  see,  trailing  an  old 
shawl  after  her.  Arthur,  by  way  of 
being  useful,  put  his  foot  upon  the 
shawl  as  it  went  by. 

After  supper  he  felt  decidedly  bet- 
ter, and  was  inclined  to  talk. 

"I  met  Davidson  this  morning  in 
the  city.  He  said  his  wife  hadn't 
seen  you  for  an  age.  Why  don't  you 
go  and  look  her  up?" 

Aggie  was  silent. 

"You  can't  expect  her  to  be  always 
running  after  you." 

44 1  can't  run  after  her,  I  assure  you. 
I  haven't  the  strength." 

"You  used,"  he  said,  reproachfully, 
"to  be  strong  enough." 

Aggie's  mouth  twisted  into  a  blanch- 
ed, unhappy  smile  —  a  smile  born 
of  wisdom  and  of  patience  and  of 
pain. 


"My  dear,  you  don't  know  what  it 
is  to  have  had  six  children/' 

"Oh,  don't  I?  I  know  enough  not 
to  want  any  more  of  them." 

"Well— then— "  said  Aggie. 

But  Arthur's  eyes  evaded  her  im- 
ploring and  pathetic  gaze.  He  turned 
the  subject  back  to  Mrs.  Davidson— 
a  clumsy  shift. 

"Anyhow,  it  doesn't  take  much 
strength  to  call  on  Mrs.  Davidson, 
does  it?" 

"It's  no  good.  I  can't  think  of  any- 
thing to  say  to  her." 

"Oh,  come,  she  isn't  difficult  to  get 
on  with." 

"No,  but  I  am.  I  don't  know  why 
it  is  I  always  feel  so  stupid  now." 

"That,"  said  Arthur,  "is  because 
you  haven't  kept  it  up." 

"I  haven't  had  the  time,"  she 
wailed. 


"Time?  Oh,  rubbish,  you  should 
make  time.  It  doesn't  do  to  let 
things  go  like  that.  Think  of  the 
children." 

"It's  because  Fm  always  thinking 
of  them." 

They  rose  from  their  poor  repast* 
(Coffee  and  mutton-chops  had  vanish- 
ed from  the  board,  and  another  period 
of  cocoa  had  set  in.)  He  picked  up 
her  shawl,  that  had  dropped  again, 
and  placed  it  about  her  shoulders,  and 
they  dragged  themselves  mournfully 
back  into  their  sitting  -  room.  She 
took  up  her  place  on  the  sofa.  He 
dropped  into  the  arm-chair,  where 
he  sat  motionless,  looking  dully  at  the 
fire.  His  wife  watched  him  with  her 
faded,  tender  eyes. 

"Arthur/'  she  said,  suddenly,  "it's 
the  first  meeting  of  the  Society  to- 
night. Did  you  forget?"  They  had 
63 


never  admitted,  to  themselves  or  to 
each  other,  that  they  had  given  it  up. 

"Yes/'  said  Arthur,  peevishly,  "of 
coarse  I  forgot.  How  on  earth  did 
you  expect  me  to  remember?" 

"I  think  you  ought  to  go,  dear, 
sometimes.  You  never  went  all  last 
winter." 

"I  know." 

"Isn't  it  a  pity  not  to  try — a  little 
— just  to  keep  it  up?  If  it's  only  for 
the  children's  sake." 

"My  dear  Aggie,  it's  for  the  chil- 
dren's sake — and  yours — that  I  fag 
my  brain  out,  as  it  is.  When  you've 
been  as  hard  at  it  as  I've  been,  all 
day,  you  don't  feel  so  very  like  turn- 
ing out  again — not  for  that  sort  of 
intellectual  game.  You  say  you  feel 
stupid  in  the  afternoon.  What  do 
you  suppose  I  feel  like  in  the  even- 


n 


His  accents  cut  Aggie  to  the  heart. 

"Oh,  my  dear,  I  know.  I  only 
thought  it  might  do  you  good,  some- 
times, to  get  a  change — if  it's  only 
from  me  and  my  stupidity." 

"If  there's  one  thing  I  hate  more 
than  another,"  said  Arthur,  "it  is  a 
change." 

She  knew  it.  That  had  been  her 
consolation.  Arthur  was  not  as  the 
race  of  dreamers  to  which  he  once 
seemed  to  have  belonged.  There  was 
in  him  a  dumb,  undying  fidelity  to  the 
tried  and  chosen.  From  the  first,  be- 
fore his  apathy  came  on  him,  he  had 
hardly  ever  left  her  to  an  evening  by 
herself.  He  had  had  neither  eyes  nor 
ears  nor  voice  for  any  other  woman. 
And  though  her  face  had  become  the 
face  of  another  woman,  and  he  hated 
changes,  she  knew  that  it  had  never 
changed  for  him.  He  loved  her  more 

6s 


than  any  of  the  six  children  she  had 
borne  him, 

"After  all,"  said  Aggie,  "do  you 
think  it  really  matters?*' 

"Do  I  think  what  matters ?" 

"What  we've  lost/' 

He  looked  suspiciously  at  her,  his 
heavy  brain  stirred  by  some  forebod- 
ing of  uncomfortable  suggestion;  she 
had  been  thinking  of  Barbara,  per- 
haps. 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean." 

He  didn't.  The  flame  in  the  wom- 
an's heart  was  not  wholly  dead,  be- 
cause he  had  kindled  it,  and  it  was 
one  with  her  love  of  him.  The  dream 
they  had  dreamed  together  had  lived 
on  for  her;  first,  as  an  agony,  then  as 
a  regret.  But  the  man  had  passed 
over  into  the  sensual  darkness  that  is 
seldom  pierced  by  pain.  Of  the  pleas- 
ures that  had  once  borne  him,  buoy- 


ant  and  triumphant,  on  the  crest  of 
the  wave,  none  were  left  btrt  such  sad 
earthly  wreckage  as  life  flings  up  at 
the  ebbing  of  the  spiritual  tide* 

They  had  come  to  the  dark  shores, 
where,  if  the  captain  wavers,  the  ships 
of  dream  founder  with  all  their  freight. 

A  dull  light  was  already  kindling 
under  his  tired  eyelids* 

"I  don't  know  what  you  feel  like/' 
said  he,  "btrt  I've  had  enough  sitting- 
up  for  one  night.  Don't  you  think 
you'd  better  go  to  bed?" 

She  went,  obediently. 


VII 

A  YEAR  passed.  It  was  winter 
again,  and  the  Gattys  had  had 
sickness  in  their  house.  Aggie  had 
been  ailing  ever  since  the  birth  of  the 
baby  that  had  succeeded  Emmy. 
And  one  evening  the  doctor  had  to 
be  summoned  for  little  Willie,  who 
had  croup.  Willie,  not  four  years  old, 
was  the  last  baby  but  three.  Yes,  he 
was  only  a  baby  himself;  Aggie  real- 
ized it  with  anguish,  as  she  undressed 
him  and  he  lay  convulsed  on  her  lap. 
He  was  only  a  baby;  and  she  had  left 
him  to  run  about  with  Arty  and 
Catty  as  if  he  were  a  big  boy.  She 


should 
Willie. 

Btrt  the  gods  took  care  of  Willie, 
and  he  was  better  before  the  doctor 
could  arrive;  and  Aggie  got  all  the 
credit  of  his  core. 

Aggie  couldn't  believe  it.  She  was 
convinced  the  doctor  was  keeping 
something  from  her,  he  sat  so  long 
with  Arthur  in  the  dining-room.  She 
could  hear  their  voices  booming  up 
the  chimney  as  she  mended  the  fire  in 
the  nursery  overhead.  It  was  not, 
she  argued,  as  if  he  ever  cared  to  talk 
to  Arthur.  Nobody  ever  cared  to 
talk  to  Arthur  long,  nor  did  he  care 
to  talk  to  anybody. 

So,  when  the  clock  struck  seven 
(the  doctor's  dinner  -  hour),  and  the 
dining-room  door  never  opened,  Ag- 
gie's anxiety  became  terror,  and  she 
stole  down-stairs.  She  had  meant  to 


go  boldly  in,  and  not  stand  there  lis- 
tening; bat  she  caught  one  emphatic 
word  that  arrested  her,  and  held  her 
there,  intent,  afraid  of  her  own  terror* 

"Never!" 

She  could  hear  Arthur's  weak  voice 
sharpened  to  a  falsetto,  as  if  he,  too, 
were  terrified* 

"No,  never.    Never  any  more!" 

There  was  a  note  almost  of  judg- 
ment in  the  doctor's  voice;  but  Aggie 
could  not  hear  that,  for  the  wild  cry 
that  went  up  in  her  heart.  "Oh, 
never  what?  Is  Willie — my  Willie — 
never  to  be  well  any  more!" 

Then  she  listened  without  a  scruple, 
justified  by  her  motherhood.  They 
were  keeping  things  from  her,  as  they 
had  kept  them  before.  As  they  had 
kept  them  when  little  Barbara  sick- 
ened. 

"And  if — if — "    Arthur's  voice  was 


\    I 


"  She  listened  without  a  scruple,  justified 
by  her  motherhood  " 


Now,  isn't  it  a  pity  for  you  to  be  going,  dearie  ?' 


weaker  this  time;  it  had  a  sort  of 
moral  powerlessness  in  it;  but  Ag- 
gie's straining  ears  caught  the  "if." 

"There  mustn't  be  any  'ifs.'  " 

Aggie's  heart  struggled  in  the 
clutches  of  her  fright. 

"That's  not  what  I  mean.  I  mean 
— is  there  any  danger  now?" 

"From  what  I  can  gather  so  far,  I 
should  say — none." 

Aggie's  heart  gave  a  great  bound  of   i 
recovery. 

"But  if/'  the  doctor  went  on,  "as 
you  say — " 

"I  know,"  cried  Arthur,  "you 
needn't  say  it.  You  won't  answer  for 
the  consequences?" 

"I  won't.  For  the  consequences,  a 
woman — in  the  weak  state  your  wife 
is  in — may  answer  herself  —  with  her 
life." 

Aggie  was  immensely  relieved.     So 


they  were  only  talking  about  her  all 
the  time! 

That  night  her  husband  told  her 
that  her  release  had  come.  It  had 
been  ordained  that  she  was  to  rest  for 
two  years.  And  she  was  to  have  help. 
They  mast  have  a  girl. 

"  Arthur/'  she  said,  firmly,  "I 
won't  have  a  girl.  They're  worse  than 
charwomen.  They  eat  more;  and  we 
can't  afford  it." 

"We  mast  afford  it.  And  oh,  an- 
other thing —  Have  you  ever  thought 
of  the  children's  education?" 

Thought  of  it?  She  had  thought  of 
nothing  else,  lying  awake  at  night, 
waiting  for  the  baby's  cry;  sitting  in 
the  daytime,  stitching  at  the  small  gar- 
ments that  were  always  just  too  small. 

"Of  course,"  she  said,  submissively. 
She  was  willing  to  yield  the  glory  of  the 
idea  to  him. 


"Well,"  he  said,  "I  don't  know  how 
we're  going  to  manage  it.  One  thing 
I  do  know — there  mustn't  be  any  more 
of  them.  I  can't  afford  it." 

He  had  said  that  before  so  often 
that  Aggie  had  felt  inclined  to  tell 
him  that  she  couldn't  afford  it,  either. 
But  to-night  she  was  silent,  for  he 
didn't  know  she  knew.  And  as  she  saw 
that  he  (who  did  know)  was  trying  to 
spare  her,  she  blessed  him  in  her  heart. 

If  he  did  not  tell  her  everything 
that  the  doctor  had  said,  he  told  her 
that  Willie  was  all  right.  Willie  had 
been  declared  to  be  a  child  of  power- 
ful health.  They  weren't  to  coddle 
him.  As  if  any  one  had  coddled  him! 
Poor  Aggie  only  wished  she  had  the 
time. 

But  now  that  her  release  had  come, 
she  would  have  time,  and  strength, 
too,  for  many  things  that  she  had  had 


to  leave  undone.  She  would  get  near- 
er to  her  children,  and  to  her  husband, 
too.  Even  at  four  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  Aggie  had  joy  in  spite  of  her 
mortal  weariness,  as  she  rocked  the 
sleepless  baby  on  the  sad  breast  that 
had  never  suckled  him.  She  told  the 
baby  all  about  it,  because  she  couldn't 
keep  it  in. 

"My  beauty/'  she  murmured,  "he 
will  always  be  my  baby.  He  sha'n't 
have  any  little  brothers  or  sisters, 
never  any  more.  There — there — there, 
did  they — ?  Hsh-sh-sh,  my  sweet  pet, 
my  lamb.  My  little  king — he  shall 
never  be  dethroned.  Hush,  hush,  my 
treasure,  or  he'll  wake  his  poor  Daddy, 
he  will." 

In  another  room,  on  his  sleepless 
pillow,  the  baby's  father  turned  and 
groaned. 

All   the   next   day,  and   the   next, 


X 

Aggie  went  about  with  a  light  step, 
and  with  eyes  that  brightened  like  a 
bride's,  because  of  the  spring  of  new 
love  in  her  heart. 

It  came  over  her  now  how  right 
Arthur  had  been,  how  she  ought  to 
have  kept  it  up,  and  how  fearfully  she 
had  let  it  go* 

Not  only  the  lectures — what  did 
they  matter? — but  her  reading,  her 
music,  everything,  all  the  little  arts 
and  refinements  by  which  she 
had  once  captured  Arthur's  heart  — 
"Things,"  she  said,  "that  made  all 
the  difference  to  Arthur/'  How  for- 
bearing and  constant  he  had  been! 

That  evening  she  dressed  her  hair 
and  put  flowers  on  the  supper-table. 
Arthur  opened  his  eyes  at  the  unusual 
appearance,  but  said  nothing.  She 
could  see  that  he  was  cross  about 
something — something  that  had  oc- 


curred  in  the  office,  probably.  She 
had  never  grudged  him  his  outbursts 
of  irritability*  It  was  his  only  dis- 
sipation. Aggie  had  always  congratu- 
lated herself  on  being  married  to  a 
good  man. 

Coffee,  the  beloved  luxury  they  had 
so  long  renounced,  was  served  with 
that  supper.  But  neither  of  them 
drank  it.  Arthur  said  he  wasn't  going 
to  be  kept  awake  two  nights  running, 
and  after  that.  Aggie's  heart  was  too 
sore  to  eat  or  drink  anything.  He 
commented  bitterly  on  the  waste. 
He  said  he  wondered  how  on  earth 
they  were  going  to  pay  the  doctor's 
bills,  at  that  rate. 

Aggie  pondered.  He  had  lain  awake 
all  night  thinking  of  the  doctor's  bills, 
had  he?  And  yet  that  was  just  what 
they  were  to  have  no  more  of.  Any- 
how, he  had  been  kept  awake;  and, 


• 


» 


of  coarse,  that  was  enough  to  make 
him  irritable. 

So  Aggie  thought  she  would  soothe 
him  to  sleep.  She  remembered  how 
he  used  to  go  to  sleep  sometimes  in 
the  evenings  when  she  played.  And 
the  music,  she  reflected  with  her  bit- 
terness, would  cost  nothing. 

But  music,  good  music,  costs  more 
than  anything;  and  Arthur  was  fas- 
tidious. Aggie's  fingers  had  grown 
stiff,  and  their  touch  had  lost  its  ten- 
derness. Of  their  old  tricks  they  re- 
membered nothing,  except  to  stumble 
at  a  "stretchy  "  chord,  a  perfect  bull- 
finch of  a  chord,  bristling  with  "  acci- 
dentals/' where  in  their  youth  they 
had  been  apt  to  shy.  Arthur  groaned. 

"Oh,  Lord,  there  won't  be  a  wink 
of  sleep  for  either  of  us  if  you  wake 
that  brat  again.  What  on  earth  pos- 
sesses you  to  strum  ?" 


But  Aggie  was  bent,  just  for  the  old 
love  of  it,  and  for  a  little  obstinacy,  on 
conquering  that  chord. 

"Oh,  stop  it!"  he  cried.  "Can't 
you  find  something  better  to  do?" 

"Yes,"  said  Aggie,  trying  to  keep 
her  mouth  from  working,  "perhaps  I 
could  find  something." 

Arthur  looked  up  at  her  from  under 
his  eyebrows,  and  was  ashamed. 

She  thought  still  of  what  she  could 
do  for  him;  and  an  inspiration  came. 
He  had  always  loved  to  listen  to  her 
reading.  Her  voice  had  not  suffered 
as  her  fingers  had;  and  there,  in  its 
old  place  on  the  shelf,  was  the  Brown- 
ing he  had  given  her. 

"Would  you  like  me  to  read  to 
you?" 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "if  you're  not  too 
tired."  He  was  touched  by  the  face 
he  had  seen,  and  by  her  pathetic  ef- 


ru 


forts;  but  oh,  he  thought,  if  she  would 
only  understand. 

She  seated  herself  in  the  old  place 
opposite  him,  and  read  from  where 
the  book  fell  open  of  its  own  accord. 

" '  O,  lyric  Love,  half  angel  and  half  bird '  "— 

Her  voice  came  stammering  like  a 
I   child's,   choked   with   tenderness  and 
many  memories — 

" '  And  all  a  wonder  and  a  wild  desire — ' " 

"Oh  no,  I  say,  for  Heaven's  sake, 
Aggie,  not  that  rot." 

"You — you  used  to  like  it." 

"Oh,  I  dare  say,  years  ago.  I  can't 
stand  it  now." 

"Can't  stand  it?" 

Again  he  was  softened. 

"Can't  understand  it,  perhaps,  my 
dear.  But  it  comes  to  the  same  thing." 


;,"    f 


"Yes,"  said  Aggie,  "it  comes  to  the 
same  thing." 

And  she  read  no  more.  For  the 
first  time,  for  many  years,  she  under- 
stood him. 

That  night,  as  they  parted,  he  did 
not  draw  her  to  him  and  kiss  her; 
but  he  let  her  tired  head  lean  towards 
him,  and  stroked  her  hair.  Her  eyes  Jj 
filled  with  tears.  She  laid  her  fore- 
head on  his  shoulder. 

"Poor  Aggie,"  he  said,  "poor  little 
woman." 

She  lifted  her  head  suddenly. 

"It's  poor  you,"  she  whispered, 
"poor,  poor  dear." 


IOW,  isn't  it  a  pity  for  you  to 
be  going,  dearie?  When  the 
place  is  doing  you  so  much  good,  and 
Susie  back  in  another  week,  and  all/' 

Aggie  folded  up  a  child's  frock  with 
great  deliberation,  and  pressed  it, 
gently  btrt  firmly,  into  the  port- 
manteau. 

"I  most  go,"  she  said,  gravely. 
"Arthur  wants  me." 

Mrs.  Purcell  was  looking  on  with 
unfeigned  grief  at  her  daughter's  prep- 
arations for  departure.  Aggie  had 
gone  down  to  Queningford,  not  for  a 
flying  visit,  but  to  spend  the  greater 


part  of  the  autumn.  She  and  Arthur 
had  had  to  abandon  some  of  the  ar- 
rangements they  had  planned  to- 
gether; and,  though  he  had  still  in- 
sisted in  general  terms  on  Aggie's  two 
years'  rest,  the  details  had  been  left 
to  her.  Thus  it  happened  that  a  year 
of  the  rest-cure  had  hardly  rolled  by 
before  Aggie  had  broken  down,  in  a 
way  that  had  filled  them  both  with 
the  gravest  anxieties  for  the  future. 
For  if  she  broke  down  when  she  was 
resting,  what  would  she  do  when  the 
two  years  were  up  and  things  had  to 
be  more  or  less  as  they  were  before? 
Aggie  was  so  frightened  this  time  that 
she  was  glad  to  be  packed  off  to  her 
mother,  with  Willie  and  Dick  and 
Emmy  and  the  baby.  The  "girls," 
Kate  and  Eliza,  had  looked  after  them, 
while  Aggie  lay  back  in  the  warm  lap  of 
luxury,  and  rested  for  once  in  her  life. 


All  Aggie's  visits  had  ended  in  the 
same  way.  The  same  letter  from 
home,  the  same  firm  and  simple  state- 
ment: "Arthur  wants  me*  I  must  go/' 
and  Aggie  was  gone  before  they  had 
had  a  look  at  her. 

"John  and  Susie  will  be  quite  of- 
fended." 

"I  can't  help  it.  Arthur  comes  be- 
fore John  and  Susie,  and  he  wants  me." 

She  had  always  been  proud  of  that — 
his  wanting  her;  his  inability  to  do 
without  her. 

"I  don't  know,"  she  said,  "what  he 
will  have  done  without  me  all  this 
time." 

Her  mother  looked  at  her  sharply, 
a  look  that,  though  outwardly  con- 
centrated on  Aggie,  suggested  much 
inward  criticism  of  Aggie's  husband. 

"He  must  learn  to  do  without  you," 
she  said,  severely. 


1 


rs*^p-| 


.,••• 


"I'm  not  sure  that  I  want  him  to," 
said  Aggie,  and  smiled. 

Her  mother  submitted  with  a  heavy 
heart. 

"My  dear,"  she  whispered,  "if  you 
had  married  John  Hurst  we  shouldn't 
have  had  to  say  good-bye." 

"I  wouldn't  have  taken  him  from 
Susie  for  the  world,"  said  Aggie,  grim- 
ly. She  knew  that  her  mother  had 
never  liked  poor  Arthur.  This  knowl- 
edge prevented  her  from  being  suf- 
ficiently grateful  to  John  for  always 
leaving  his  trap  (the  trap  that  was 
once  to  have  been  hers)  at  her  dis- 
posal. It  was  waiting  to  take  her  to 
the  station  now. 

Aggie  had  only  seen  her  sister,  Mrs. 
John  Hurst,  once  since  they  had  both 
married.  Whenever  Aggie  was  in 
Queningford,  John  and  Susie  were  in 
Switzerland,  on  the  honeymoon  that, 


— "1 


for  the  happy,  prosperous  couple,  re- 
newed itself  every  year. 

This  year  it  was  agreed  that,  when 
the  Hursts  came  up  to  Islington  for 
the  Grand  Horse-Show  in  the  spring, 
they  were  to  be  put  up  at  the  Gattys' 
in  Camden  Town. 

Aggie  was  excited  and  a  little  alarm- 
ed at  the  prospect  of  this  visit.  Susie 
was  accustomed  to  having  everything 
very  nice  and  comfortable  about  her, 
and  she  would  be  critical  of  the  villa 
and  its  ways.  And,  then,  it  would  be 
awkward  seeing  John.  She  smiled. 
It  always  had  been  awkward  seeing 
John. 

But  when  the  spring  came  a  new 
terror  was  added  to  Aggie's  hospitable 
anxiety,  a  new  embarrassment  to  the 
general  awkwardness  of  seeing  John. 

After  all,  the  Hursts  put  up  at  a 
el  in  town.  But  Susie  was  to  come 


v 


over  for  tea  and  a  long  talk  with  Ag- 
gie, John  following  later. 

Aggie  prepared  with  many  tremors 
for  the  meeting  with  her  sister.  She 
made  herself  quite  sick  and  faint  in 
her  long  battling  with  her  hair.  She 
had  so  little  time  for  "doing  "  it  that 
it  had  become  very  difficult  to  "do/' 
and  when  it  was  "done"  she  said  to 
herself  that  it  looked  abominable.  Her 
fingers  shook  as  they  strained  at  the 
hooks  of  the  shabby  gown  that  was 
her  "best."  She  had  found  some- 
where a  muslin  scarf  that,  knotted 
and  twined  with  desperate  ingenuity, 
produced  something  of  the  effect  that 
she  desired. 

Up-stairs  in  the  nursery,  Catty,  very 
wise  for  six  years  old,  was  minding  the 
baby,  while  the  little  nervous  maid 
got  tea  ready.  Aggie  sat  in  the  draw- 
ing-room waiting  for  her  sister.  Even 


•"-""1 


' 


as  she  waited  she  dared  not  be  idle. 
There  was  an  old  coat  of  Arthur's 
that  she  had  been  lining,  taking  ad- 
vantage of  a  change  to  milder  weather; 
it  was  warmer  than  the  one  he  was 
wearing,  and  she  was  afraid  to  let  it 
go  another  day  lest  the  wind  should 
turn  round  to  the  northeast  again. 
In  such  anxieties  Aggie  moved  and 
had  her  being.  For  the  rest,  she  had 
given  the  little  maid  a  lesson  in  the 
proper  way  of  showing  Mrs.  John 
Hurst  into  the  room  when  she  ar- 
rived. 

Mrs.  John  Hurst  arrived  a  little  late. 
She  came  in  unannounced  (for  her  ap- 
pearance had  taken  the  little  maid's 
breath  away);  she  came  with  a  cer- 
tain rustle  and  sweep  which  was  much 
more  important  than  anything  Susie 
had  ever  done  in  the  old  days  when 
Aggie  was  the  pretty  one. 


f '. ''-'' ''•:' 


Aggie  was  moved  at  seeing  her.  She 
ottered  a  cry  of  affection  and  delight, 
and  gave  herself  to  Susie's  open  arms. 

"Darting!"  said  Mrs.  John  Hurst. 
"Let  me  have  a  good  look  at  you." 

She  kissed  her  violently,  held  her  at 
arm's-length  for  a  moment,  and  then 
kissed  her  again,  very  gently.  In  that 
moment  Aggie  had  looked  at  Susie, 
and  Susie  at  Aggie,  each  trying  to  mas- 
ter the  meaning  of  the  other's  face. 
It  was  Susie  who  understood  first. 
Prosperity  was  very  becoming  to 
Susie.  She  was  the  pretty  one  now, 
and  she  knew  it.  Marriage  had  done 
for  her  what  maidenhood  had  done  for 
her  sister,  and  Susie  was  the  image 
of  what  Aggie  used  to  be. 

But  Aggie  herself !  Nothing  was 
left  now  of  the  diminutive  distinction 
that  had  caused  her  to  be  once  adored 
in  Queningford.  Susie  was  young  at 


two-and-thirty,  and  Aggie,  not  three 
years  older,  was  middle-aged.  Not 
that  there  were  many  wrinkles  on 
Aggie's  face.  Only  a  deep,  crescent 
line  on  each  side  of  a  motrth  that  looked 
as  if  it  had  been  strained  tight  with 
many  tortures*  It  was  as  if  Nature 
had  conceived  a  grudge  against  Aggie, 
and  strove,  through  maternity,  to 
stamp  out  her  features  as  an  indi- 
vidual. 

"Oh  yes/'  said  Aggie,  to  break  the 
intolerable  tension  of  that  look,  "it's 
one  of  your  old  ones,  turned  and 
trimmed  to  make  it  look  different." 

"Poor  darling,"  said  Susie;  but 
what  she  thought  was  that  it  did  look 
different. 

Luckily  Mrs.  John  Hurst  was  full 
of  the  Horse -Show.  She  could  talk 
of  nothing  else.  It  was  the  Horse- 
Show  that  had  made  her  late.  She 


had  waited  for  the  judging,  John 
would  look  in  as  soon  as  he  could  get 
away.  Gownboy  had  carried  off  the 
gold  cup  and  the  gold  medal  again, 
and  the  judges  had  been  unjust,  as 
usual,  to  John  (John,  grown  prosperous, 
had  added  horse-breeding  to  sheep- 
farming).  Ladslove  had  only  been 
highly  commended.  Ladslove  was 
Rosemary's  foal. 

"You  remember  Rosemary,  Aggie?" 
Aggie  remembered  neither  Rosemary 
nor  her  foal.  But  she  was  sorry  for 
Ladslove.  She  was  grateful  to  him, 
too,  for  holding  Susie's  attention  and 
diverting  it  from  all  the  things  she 
didn't  want  her  to  see.  She  was 
afraid  of  Susie;  afraid  of  her  sym- 
pathy; afraid  of  her  saying  some- 
thing about  Barbara  (she  couldn't 
speak  of  little  Bessie,  Susie's  only 
child,  who  had  died  three  years  ago). 


Above  all,  she  was  afraid  of  Susie's 
inquisitive  tongue  and  searching  eyes. 

She  flung  herself  into  fictitious 
reminiscences  of  the  Queningford  stud. 
She  couldn't  have  done  worse. 

"Oh,  Aggie/'  said  her  sister,  "you 
do  mix  them  up  so." 

"Well,"  said  poor  Aggie,  "there  are 
so  many  of  them,  I  can't  keep  count." 

"Never  mind,  dear."  Aggie's  words 
recalled  Susie  to  her  sisterly  duties. 
"I  haven't  asked  after  the  children 
yet.  How  many  are  there?  /  can't 
keep  count,  either,  you  know." 

Aggie  turned  away,  found  the  old 
coat  she  had  been  lining,  and  spread 
it  on  her  lap.  Susie's  eye  roamed  and 
rested  on  the  coat,  and  Aggie's  fol- 
lowed it. 

"Do  excuse  my  going  on  with  this. 
Arthur  wants  it." 

Susie  smiled  in  recognition  of  the 


familiar  phrase.  Ever  since  he  had 
first  appeared  in  Queningford,  Arthur 
had  always  been  wanting  something. 
Butt  as  she  looked  at  the  poor  coat, 
she  reflected  that  one  thing  he  had 
never  wanted,  or  had  never  asked  for, 
and  that  was  help. 

"Aggie/'  she  said,  "I  do  hope  that 
if  you  ever  want  a  little  help,  dear, 
you'll  come  to  me." 

Susie,  preoccupied  with  the  idea  of 
liberality,  could  not  see  that  she  had 
chosen  her  moment  badly.  Her  offer, 
going  as  it  did,  hand-in-hand  with  her 
glance,  reflected  upon  Arthur. 

"I  don't  want  any  help,  thank  you," 
said  Aggie.  "  Arthur's  doing  very 
well  now.  Very  well,  indeed." 

"Then,"  said  Susie,  "why  on  earth 
do  you  break  your  back  over  that 
stitching,  if  there's  no  need?  That's 
not  my  notion  of  economy." 


Susie  was  a  kind-hearted  woman, 
but  eight  years  of  solid  comfort  and 
prosperity  had  blunted  her  perceptions. 
Moreover,  she  had  an  earnestly  prac- 
tical mind,  a  mind  for  which  material 
considerations  outweighed  every  other. 

"My  dear  Susie,  your  notion  of 
economy  would  be  the  same  as  mine, 
if  you  had  had  seven  children/' 

"But  I  haven't,"  said  Susie,  sadly. 
She  was  humbled  by  the  rebuff  she 
had  just  received.  "I  only  wish  I 
had." 

Aggie  looked  up  from  her  work  with 
a  remorseful  tenderness  in  her  tired 
eyes.  She  was  sorry  for  poor  Susie, 
who  had  lost  her  only  one. 

But  Susie  had  already  regretted  her 
momentary  weakness,  and  her  pride 
was  up.  She  was  a  primitive  woman, 
and  had  always  feared  lest  reproach 
should  lie  upon  her  among  the  mothers 


of  many  children.  Besides,  she  had 
never  forgotten  that  her  John  had 
loved  Aggie  first.  Aggie,  with  her 
seven  children,  should  not  set  her 
down  as  a  woman  slighted  by  her  hus- 
band. 

"I  haven't  had  the  strength  for  it," 
said  she;  and  Aggie  winced.  "The 
doctor  told  John  I  mustn't  have  more 
than  the  one.  And  I  haven't/' 

Poor  Aggie  hardened  her  face  before 
Susie's  eyes,  for  she  felt  that  they  were 
spying  out  and  judging  her.  And 
Susie,  seeing  that  set  look,  remem- 
bered how  badly  Aggie  had  once  be- 
haved to  her  John.  Therefore  she  was 
tempted  to  extol  him. 

"But  then,"  said  she,  magnificent- 
ly, "I  have  my  husband."  (As  if 
Aggie  hadn't  hers  !)  "Nobody  knows 
what  John  is  but  me.  Do  you  know, 
there  hasn't  been  one  unkind  word 


passed  between  us,  nor  one  cross  look, 
ever  since  he  married  me  eight  years 
ago," 

"There  are  very  few  who  can  say 
that/'  Aggie  tried  to  throw  a  ring 
of  robust  congratulation  into  her  flat 
tones. 

"Very  few.  But  there's  no  one 
like  him." 

"No  one  like  you,  either,  I  should 
say." 

"Well,  for  him  there  isn't.  He's 
never  had  eyes  for  any  one  but  me — 
never." 

Aggie  cast  down  her  eyes  demurely 
at  that.  She  had  no  desire  to  hurt 
Susie  by  reminding  her  of  the  facts. 
But  Susie,  being  sensitive  on  the  sub- 
ject, had  provided  for  all  that. 

"Of  course,  dear,  I  know,  just  at 
first,  he  thought  of  you.  A  fancy. 
He  told  me  all  about  it;  and  how  you 


-  ._  --,.--.--;:.  v-.vf ..-;-:-. ..:....-...-....:-.-.•.• 


wouldn't  have  him,  he  said.  He  said 
he  didn't  think  you  thought  him  gen- 
tle enough.  That  shows  how  much 
you  knew  about  him,  my  dear." 

"I  should  always  have  supposed/' 
said  Aggie,  coldly,  "he  would  be  gentle 
to  any  one  he  cared  for." 

She  knew,  and  Susie  knew,  she  had 
supposed  the  very  opposite;  but  she 
wished  Susie  to  understand  that  John 
had  been  rejected  with  full  realization 
of  his  virtues,  because,  good  as  he  was, 
somebody  else  was  still  better.  So 
that  there  might  be  no  suspicion  of 
regret. 

"Gentle?  Why,  Aggie,  if  that  was 
what  you  wanted,  he's  as  gentle  as  a 
woman.  Gentler — there  aren't  many 
women,  I  can  tell  you,  who  have  the 
strength  that  goes  with  that." 

Aggie  bent  her  head  lower  yet  over 
her  work.  She  thought  she  could  see 


in  Susie's  speech  a  vindictive  and  crit- 
ical intention.  All  the  time  she  had, 
Aggie  thought,  been  choosing  her 
words  judicially,  so  that  each  unneces- 
sary eulogy  of  John  should  strike  at 
some  weak  spot  in  poor  Arthur.  She 
felt  that  Susie  was  not  above  paying 
off  her  John's  old  scores  by  an  oblique 
and  cowardly  blow  at  the  man  who 
had  supplanted  him.  She  wished  that 
Susie  would  either  leave  off  talking 
about  John,  or  go. 

But  Susie  still  interpreted  Aggie's 
looks  as  a  challenge,  and  the  hymn 
of  praise  swelled  on. 

"My  dear — if  John  wasn't  an  angel 
of  goodness  and  unselfishness —  When 
I  think  how  useless  I  am  to  him,  and 
of  all  that  he  has  done  for  me,  and  all 
that  he  has  given  up — " 

Aggie  was  trembling.  She  drew  up 
the  coat  to  shelter  her. 


44 — why  it  makes  my  blood  boil  to 
think  that  any  one  should  know  him, 
and  not  know  what  he  is." 

Aggie  dropped  the  coat  in  her  agita- 
tion. As  she  stooped  to  pick  it  up, 
Susie  put  out  an  anxious  arm  to  help 
her* 

Their  eyes  met. 

"Oh,  Aggie,  dear — "  said  Susie.  It 
was  all  she  could  say.  And  her 
voice  had  in  it  consternation  and  re- 
proach. 

But  Aggie  faced  her. 

"Well?"  she  said,  steadily. 

"Oh,  nothing — "  It  was  Susie's 
turn  for  confusion.  "Only  you  said — 
and  we  thought — after  what  you've 
been  told—" 

"What  was  I  told?" 

Horror  overcame  Susie,  and  she 
lost  her  head. 

"Weren't  you  told,  then?" 


Her  horror  was  reflected  in  her  sis- 
ter's eyes.  But  Aggie  kept  calm* 

"Susie,"  she  said,  "what  do  you 
mean?  That  I  wasn't  told  of  the 
risk?  Is  that  what  you  meant ?" 

"Oh,  Aggie — "  Susie  was  helpless. 
She  could  not  say  what  she  had  meant, 
nor  whether  she  had  really  meant  it. 

"Who  should  be  told  if  I  wasn't? 
Surely  I  was  the  proper  person?" 

Susie  recovered  herself .  "Of  course, 
dear,  of  course  you  were." 

"Well?"  Aggie  forced  the  word 
again  through  her  tight,  strained  lips. 

"I'm  not  blaming  you,  Aggie,  dear. 
I  know  it  isn't  your  fault." 

"Whose  is  it,  then?" 

Susie's  soft  face  hardened,  and  she 
said  nothing. 

Her  silence  lay  between  them;  si- 
lence that  had  in  it  a  throbbing  heart 
of  things  unutterable;  silence  that 


was  an  accusation,  a  judgment  of  the 
man  that  Aggie  loved* 

Then  Aggie  turned,  and  in  her  im- 
mortal loyalty  she  lied. 

"I  never  told  him/' 

"Never  told  him?  Oh,  my  dear, 
you  were  very  wrong/' 

"Why  should  I?  He  was  ill.  It 
would  have  worried  him.  It  worried 
me  less  to  keep  it  to  myself/' 

"But— the  risk?" 

"Oh,"  said  Aggie,  sublimely,  "we 
all  take  it.  Some  of  us  don't  know. 
I  did.  That's  all." 

She  drew  a  deep  breath  of  relief  and 
satisfaction.  For  four  months,  ever 
since  she  had  known  that  some  such 
scene  as  this  must  come,  she  had 
known  that  she  would  meet  it  this 
way. 

"Hush,"  she  said.  "I  think  I  hear 
the  children." 


IX 

THEY  came  in,  a  pathetic  little 
procession,  three  golden  -  haired 
couples,  holding  one  another's  hands. 

First,  Arty  and  Emmy,  then  Catty 
and  Baby,  then  Willie  and  Dick,  all 
solemn  and  shy.  Baby  turned  his 
back  on  the  strange  atmt  and  burrowed 
into  his  mother's  lap.  They  were  all 
silent  but  Dick.  Dick  wanted  to 
know  if  his  Auntie  liked  birfdays,  and 
if  people  gave  her  fings  on  her  birf- 
day  —  pausing  to  simulate  a  delicate 
irrelevance  before  he  announced  that 
his  birfday  was  to-morrow. 

"Dickie,   dear,"    said    his    mother, 


• 


nervously,  "we  don't  talk  about  our 
birthdays  before  they've  come." 

She  could  not  bear  Susie  to  be  able 
to  say  that  one  of  her  children  had 
given  so  gross  a  hint. 

The  children  pressed  round  her,  and 
her  hands  were  soon  at  their  proud 
and  anxious  work:  coaxing  stray  curls 
into  their  place;  proving  the  strength 
of  the  little  arms;  slipping  a  sock,  to 
show  the  marbled  rose  of  the  round 
limbs. 

"Just  feel  Emmy's  legs.  She's  as 
firm  as  firm.  And  look  at  Baby,  how 
beautifully  he's  made.  They're  all 
healthy.  There  isn't  an  unsweet,  un- 
sound spot  in  one  of  them." 

"No,    no,    they    look    it. 
magnificent.    And    they're 
over  again." 

"Barbara  wasn't.  She  was  the  very 
image  of  her  father."  Her  love  of  him 


They're 
you    all 


" '  There  isn't  an  unsweet,  unsound  spot  in  one  of  them ' " 


conquered  the  stubborn  silence  of  her 
grief,  so  that  she  did  not  shrink  from 
the  beloved  name. 

"Susie,"  she  said,  when  the  little 
procession  had,  at  its  own  petition, 
filed  solemnly  out  again,  "you  can't 
say  you've  seen  too  much  of  them/' 

Susie  smiled  sadly  as  she  looked  at 
the  wreck  that  was  poor  Aggie.  "No, 
my  dear;  but  I  haven't  seen  quite 
enough  of  you.  There  isn't  much  left 
of  you,  you  know/' 

"Me?"  She  paused,  and  then  broke 
out  again,  triumphant  in  her  justifica- 
tion: "No  matter  if  there's  nothing 
left  of  me.  They're  alive." 

She  raised  her  head.  Worn  out  and 
broken  down  she  might  be,  but  she 
was  the  mother  of  superb  children. 
Something  stronger  and  more  beauti- 
ful than  her  lost  youth  flamed  in  her 
as  she  vindicated  her  motherhood. 


She  struck  even  Susie's  dull  imagina- 
tion as  wonderful. 

Half  an  hour  later  Aggie  bent  her 
aching  back  again  over  her  work. 
She  had  turned  a  stiff,  set  face  to 
Susie  as  she  parted  from  her.  John 
had  come  and  gone,  and  it  had  not 
been  awkward  in  the  least.  He  was 
kind  and  courteous  (time  and  pros- 
perity had  improved  him),  but  he  had, 
as  Susie  said,  no  eyes  for  any  one  but 
his  wife. 

As  Aggie  worked  she  was  assailed 
by  many  thoughts  and  many  memories. 
Out  of  the  past  there  rose  a  sublime 
and  patient  face.  It  smiled  at  her 
above  a  butchery  of  little  lambs. 

Yes,  Susie  was  right  about  her  John. 
There  was  no  weak  spot  in  him.  He 
had  not  a  great  intellect,  but  he  had 
a  great  heart  and  a  great  will.  Aggie 
remembered  how  once,  in  her  thought- 


ful  maiden  days,  she  had  read  in  one 
of  the  vicar's  books  a  saying  which 
had  struck  her  at  the  time,  for  the 
vicar  had  underlined  it  twice.  "If 
there  is  aught  spiritual  in  man,  it  is 
the  Will."  She  had  not  thought  of 
John  as  a  very  spiritual  person.  She 
had  dimly  divined  in  him  the  pos- 
sibility of  strong  passions,  such  pas- 
sions as  make  shipwreck  of  men's 
lives.  And  here  was  Arthur — he,  poor 
dear,  would  never  be  shipwrecked,  for 
he  hadn't  one  strong  passion  in  him; 
he  had  only  a  few  weak  little  im- 
pulses, incessantly  frustrating  a  will 
weaker  than  them  all.  She  remem- 
bered how  her  little  undeveloped  soul, 
with  its  flutterings  and  strugglings 
after  the  immaterial,  had  been  re- 
pelled by  the  large  presence  of  the 
natural  man.  It  had  been  afraid  to 
trust  itself  to  his  strength,  lest  its 


wings  should  suffer  for  it.  It  had  not 
been  afraid  to  trust  itself  to  Arthur? 
and  his  weakness  had  made  it  a  wing- 
less thing,  dragged  down  by  the  suf- 
fering of  her  body. 

She  said  to  herself ,  "If  I  had  known 
John  was  like  that — " 

She  stopped  her  brain  before  it 
could  answer  for  her!  "You  wouldn't 
be  sitting  here  now  stitching  at  that 
coat/' 

She  stitched  on  till  she  could  see  to 
stitch  no  more;  for  tears  came  and 
blinded  her  eyes,  and  fell  upon  the 
coat* 

That  was  just  after  she  had  kissed 
it. 


,  .   „.-.«.  _, 

. 


r — i 


x 


IT  was  Easter,  three  weeks  after 
Susie's  visit;  and  Arthur  was  go- 
ing away  for  a  fortnight,  his  first  real 
holiday  in  seven  years*  For  some 
time  he  had  been  lengthening  out  his 
office  hoars,  and  increasing  his  salary, 
by  adding  night  to  day.  And  now  he 
had  worn  himself  out  by  his  own 
ferocious  industry.  He  knew,  and 
Aggie  knew,  that  he  was  in  for  a  bad 
illness  if  he  didn't  get  away,  and  at 
once.  He  had  written  in  his  extrem- 
ity to  a  bachelor  brother,  known  in  the 
little  house  at  Camden  Town  as  the 
Mammon  of  Unrighteousness.  The 


brother  had  a  big  house  down  in  Kent; 
and  into  that  house,  though  it  was  the 
house  of  Mammon,  Arthur  proposed 
that  he  should  be  received  for  a  week 
or  two.  He  took  care  to  mention, 
casually,  and  by  way  of  a  jest  after 
the  brother's  own  heart,  that  for  those 
weeks  he,  Arthur,  would  be  a  lonely 
widower. 

The  brother  was  in  the  habit  of  re- 
membering Arthur's  existence  once  a 
year  at  Christmas.  He  would  have 
had  him  down  often  enough,  he  said, 
if  the  poor  beggar  could  have  come 
alone.  But  he  barred  Aggie  and  the 
children.  Aggie,  poor  dear,  was  a 
bore;  and  the  children,  six,  by  Jove 
(or  was  it  seven?),  were  just  seven  (or 
was  it  six?)  blanked  nuisances.  Though 
uncertain  about  the  number  of  the 
children,  he  always  sent  seven  or  eight 

\      presents  at  Christmas  to  be  on  the 

\  1 08 

^  MI>«iMii«»Mnmi»»w>Ma>«ii«aMiiM<wu«MiiM>i^ 


safe  side.  So  when  Arthur  announced 
that  he  was  a  widower,  the  brother, 
in  his  bachelor  home,  gave  a  great  roar 
of  genial  laughter.  He  saw  an  oppor- 
tunity of  paying  off  all  his  debts  to 
Arthur  in  a  comparatively  easy  fashion 
all  at  once. 

"Take  him  for  a  fortnight,  poor 
devil?  Fd  take  him  for  ten  fort- 
nights. Heavens,  what  a  relief  it  must 
be  to  get  away  from  'Aggie '!" 

And  when  Arthur  got  his  brother's 
letter,  he  and  Aggie  were  quite  sorry 
that  they  had  ever  called  him  the 
Mammon  of  Unrighteousness. 

But  the  brother  kept  good  company 
down  in  Kent.  Aggie  knew  that,  in 
the  old  abominable  Queningf  ord  phrase, 
he  was  "in  with  the  county/'  She 
saw  her  Arthur  mixing  in  gay  garden 
scenes,  with  a  cruel  spring  sun  shining 
on  the  shabby  suit  that  had  seen  so 


K  t         -  I 


many  springs.  Arthurs  heart  failed 
him  at  the  last  moment,  but  Aggie 
did  not  fail.  Go  he  mast,  she  said. 
If  the  brother  was  the  Mammon  of 
Unrighteousness,  all  the  more,  she  ar- 
gtied,  should  he  be  propitiated — for  the 
children's  sake.  (The  Mammon  was 
too  selfish  ever  to  marry,  and  there 
were  no  other  nieces  and  nephews.) 
She  represented  the  going  down  into 
Kent  as  a  sublime  act  of  self-sacrifice 
by  which  Arthur,  as  it  were,  conse- 
crated his  paternity.  She  sustained 
that  lofty  note  till  Arthur  himself  was 
struck  with  his  own  sublimity.  And 
when  she  told  him  to  stand  up  and  let 
her  look  at  him,  he  stood  up,  tired  as 
he  was,  and  let  her  look  at  him. 

Many  sheepfolds  have  delivered  up 
their  blameless  flocks  to  Mammon. 
But  Aggie,  when  she  considered  the 
quality  of  the  god,  felt  dimly  that  no 


•• 


more  innocent  victim  was  ever  yet 
provided  than  poor,  jaded  Arthur  in 
his  suit  of  other  years.  The  thought 
in  her  mind  was  that  it  would  not  do 
for  him  to  look  ioo  innocent.  He 
must  go — but  not  like  that. 

So,  for  three  days  of  blinding  labor, 
Aggie  applied  herself  to  the  propitia- 
tion of  Mammon,  the  sending  forth  of 
her  sacrificial  lamb  properly  decked 
for  the  sacrifice.  There  never  had 
been  such  a  hauling  and  overhauling 
of  clothes,  such  folding  and  unfolding, 
such  stitching  and  darning  and  cleans- 
ing and  pressing,  such  dragging  out 
and  packing  of  heavy  portmanteaus, 
such  a  getting  up  of  shirts  that  should 
be  irreproachable. 

Aggie  did  it  all  herself;  she  would 
trust  no  one,  least  of  all  the  laundress. 
She  had  only  faint  old  visions  of  John 
Hurst's  collars  to  guide  herj  but  she 


was  upheld  by  an  immense  relief,  born 
of  her  will  to  please,  and  Arthur,  by 
a  blind  reliance,  born  of  his  utter  weari- 
ness. At  times  these  preparations  well- 
nigh  exasperated  him.  "  If  going  meant 
all  that  fuss,"  he  said,  "  he'd  rather 
not  go."  But  if  he  had  been  told  that 
anything  would  happen  to  prevent  his 
going,  he  would  have  sat  down  and 
cursed  or  cried.  His  nerves  clamored 
for  change  now — any  change  from  the 
office  and  the  horrible  yellow  villa  in 
Camden  Town* 

All  of  a  sudden,  at  the  critical  mo- 
ment, Aggie's  energy  showed  signs  of 
slowing  down,  and  it  seemed  to  both 
of  them  that  she  would  never  get  him 
off. 

Then,  for  the  first  time,  he  woke  to 
a  dreary  interest  in  the  packing.  He 
began  to  think  of  things  for  himself. 
He  thought  of  a  certain  suit  of  flannels 


which  he  must  take  with  him,  which 
Aggie  hadn't  cleaned  or  mended,  either. 
In  his  weak  state,  it  seemed  to  him 
that  his  very  going  depended  on  that 
stiit  of  flannels.  He  went  about  the 
house  inquiring  irritably  for  them. 
He  didn't  know  that  his  voice  had 
grown  so  fierce  in  its  quality  that  it 
scared  the  children;  or  that  he  was 
ordering  Aggie  about  like  a  dog;  or 
that  he  was  putting  upon  her  bowed 
and  patient  back  burdens  heavier  than 
it  should  have  borne.  He  didn't  know 
what  he  was  doing. 

And  he  did  not  know  why  Aggie's 
brain  was  so  dull  and  her  feet  so  slow, 
nor  why  her  hands,  that  were  inces- 
santly doing,  seemed  now  incapable 
of  doing  any  one  thing  right.  He  did 
not  know,  because  he  was  stupefied 
with  his  own  miserable  sensations,  and 
Aggie  had  contrived  to  hide  from  him 


what  Susie's  sharp  eyes  had  discovered. 
Besides,  he  felt  that,  in  his  officially 
invalid  capacity,  a  certain  license  was 
permitted  him. 

So,  when  he  found  his  flannels  in  the 
boot  cupboard,  he  came  and  flung 
them  onto  the  table  where  Aggie  bent 
over  her  ironing-board.  A  feeble  fury 
shook  him. 

"Nobody  but  a  fool,"  he  said, 
"would  ram  good  flannels  into  a 
filthy  boot  cupboard/' 

"I  didn't,"  said  Aggie,  in  a  strange, 
uninterested  voice.  "You  must  have 
put  them  there  yourself." 

He  remembered. 

"Well,"  he  said,  placably,  for  he 
was,  after  all,  a  just  man,  "do  you 
think  they  could  be  made  a  little 
cleaner?" 

"I — can't — "  said  Aggie,  in  a  still 
stranger  voice,  a  voice  that  sounded 


>   i: 


•%--  . 


as  if  it  were  deflected  somehow  by 
her  bent  body  and  came  from  an- 
other woman  rather  far  away.  It 
made  Arthur  turn  in  the  doorway  and 
look  at  her.  She  rose,  straightening 
herself  slowly,  dragging  herself  upward 
from  the  table  with  both  hands.  Her 
bleached  lips  parted;  she  drew  in  her 
breath  with  a  quick  sound  like  a  sob, 
and  let  it  out  again  on  a  sharp  note  of 
pain. 

He  rushed  to  her,  all  his  sunken 
manhood  roused  by  her  bitter,  help- 
less cry. 

44 Aggie,  darling,  what  is  it?  Are 
you  ill?" 

"No,  no,  I'm  not  ill;  I'm  only  tired/' 
she  sobbed,  clutching  at  him  with  her 
two  hands,  and  swaying  where  she 
stood. 

He  took  her  in  his  arms  and  half 
dragged,  half  carried  her  from  the 


room.  On  the  narrow  stairs  they 
paused. 

"Let  me  go  alone,"  she  whispered. 

She  tried  to  free  herself  from  his 
grasp,  failed,  and  laid  her  head  back 
on  his  shoulder  again;  and  he  lifted 
her  and  carried  her  to  her  bed. 

He  knelt  down  and  took  off  her 
shoes.  He  sat  beside  her,  supporting 
her  while  he  let  down  her  long,  thin 
braids  of  hair.  She  looked  up  at  him, 
and  saw  that  there  was  still  no  knowl- 
edge in  the  frightened  eyes  that  gazed 
at  her;  and  when  he  would  have  un- 
fastened the  bodice  of  her  gown,  she 
pushed  back  his  hands  and  held  them. 

"No,  no/'  she  whimpered.  "Go 
away.  Go  away." 

-Aggie-" 

"Go  away,  I  tell  you." 

"My  God,"  he  moaned,  more  smit- 
ten, more  helpless  than  she.  For,  as 


she  turned  from  him,  he  understood 
the  height  and  depth  of  her  tender 
perjury.  She  had  meant  to  spare  him 
for  as  long  as  it  might  be,  because, 
afterwards  (she  must  have  felt),  his 
own  conscience  would  not  be  so  mer- 
ciful. 

He  undressed  her,  handling  her  with 
his  clumsy  gentleness,  and  laid  her  in 
her  bed. 

He  had  called  the  maid;  she  went 
bustling  to  and  fro,  loud-footed  and 
wild-eyed.  From  time  to  time  a  cry 
came  from  the  nursery  where  the  lit- 
tle ones  were  left  alone.  Outside, 
down  the  street,  Arty  and  Catty  ran 
hand-in-hand  to  fetch  the  doctor,  their 
sobbing  checked  by  a  mastering  sense 
of  their  service  and  importance. 

And  the  man,  more  helpless  than 
any  child,  clung  to  the  woman's  hand 
and  waited  with  her  for  her  hour. 


As  he  waited  he  looked  round  the 
shabby  room,  and  saw  for  the  first 
time  how  poor  a  place  it  was.  Noth- 
ing seemed  to  have  been  provided  for 
Aggie;  nothing  ever  was  provided  for 
her;  she  was  always  providing  things 
for  other  people.  His  eyes  fastened 
on  the  Madonna  di  Gran  Duca  fading 
in  her  frame.  He  remembered  how 
he  had  bought  it  for  Aggie  seven  years 
ago.  Aggie  lay  under  the  Madonna, 
with  her  eyes  closed,  making  believe 
that  she  slept.  But  he  could  see  by 
the  fluttering  of  her  eyelids  that  her 
spirit  was  awake  and  restless. 

Presently  she  spoke. 

"Arthur,"  she  said,  "I  believe  I'm 
going  to  have  a  nice  quiet  night,  after 
all.  But  when — when  the  time  comes, 
you're  not  to  worry,  do  you  hear? 
Kate  and  mother  will  come  up  and 
look  after  me.  And  you're  to  go  away 


I 

[did!    Wo 
Thoughts  came  to  him,  terrible   thoughts " 


to-morrow,  just  as  if  nothing  had  hap- 
pened." 

She  paused* 

"The  flannels/'  she  said,  "shall  be 
washed  and  sent  after  you*  You're 
not  to  worry." 

She  was  providing  still. 

"Oh,  Aggie— darling— don't." 

"Why  not?  You  ought  to  go  to 
bed,  because  you'll  have  to  get  up  so 
early  to-morrow  morning." 

She  closed  her  eyes,  and  he  watched 
and  waited  through  minutes  that  were 
hours.  It  seemed  to  him  that  it  was 
another  man  than  he  who  waited  and 
watched.  He  was  estranged  from  his 
former  self,  the  virtuous,  laborious  self 
that  he  had  once  known,  moving  in  its 
dull  and  desolate  routine.  Thoughts 
came  to  him,  terrible,  abominable 
thoughts  that  could  never  have  oc- 
curred to  it. 


\ 


1 


"It  would  have  been  better/'  said 
this  new  self,  "if  I  had  been  un- 
faithful to  her.  That  wouldn't  have 
killed  her/' 

As  if  she  had  heard  him  through 
some  spiritual  sense,  she  pressed  his 
hand  and  answered  him. 

"Thank  God/'  she  whispered,  hoarse- 
ly, "that  you've  always  loved  me." 

She  struggled  with  her  voice  for  a 
moment?  then  it  came,  brave  and 
clear. 

"Listen,  Arthur.  I  wrote  to  mother 
three  weeks  ago.  About  this.  I've 
made  her  think  that  it  was  I  who 
wanted  the  children,  always,  from  the 
very  first.  She'll  understand  that  I 
couldn't  be  happy  without  a  baby  in 
my  arms.  It  is  different.  They're 
never  quite  the  same  after  the  first 
year.  Even  Arty  wasn't.  Mother  will 
understand.  She  won't  be  hard." 


She  had  provided  for  everything.  It 
was  her  lie  that  proved  the  extremity 
of  her  fear,  her  foreboding. 

If  only  she  had  not  lied! 

Somehow,  in  the  seven  years  of  his 
married  life,  he  had  never  seen  this 
calamity  in  front  of  him.  His  dreams 
had  always  been  of  a  time  when  their 
children  should  be  out  in  the  world, 
when  he  saw  himself  walking  with  his 
wife  in  some  quiet  country  place,  like 
Qaeningford. 

If  she  had  not  lied! 

He  sought  for  calm  words  wherewith 
to  support  her;  but  no  words  came. 
He  clutched  at  the  bedclothes.  His 
eyes  were  blind  with  tears,  his  ears 
deafened  by  the  sound  of  his  own 
pulses. 

In  a  moment  the  seven  years  were 
unveiled.  He  had  a  sudden  vision  of 
ie's  incorruptible  love  and  divine 


tenderness  before  his  grief  closed  over 
him. 

Her  eyes  were  resting  upon  his. 

"I'm  not  afraid/'  she  said;  "not 
the  least  little  bit.  I'd  rather  you 
went  away  to-morrow.  I  don't — mind 
— being  left." 

Bat  when  to-morrow  came  it  was 
he  who  was  left. 

He  was  sitting  in  the  room  under- 
neath Aggie's.  He  had  a  pen  in  his 
hand,  and  his  mind  was  unusually 
calm  and  clear.  He  had  just  tele- 
graphed to  his  brother  that  he  couldn't 
go — because  Aggie  was  dead.  Now  he 
was  trying  to  write  to  Aggie's  mother 
to  tell  her  to  come— because  Aggie  was 
dead. 

He  had  a  great  many  things  to  see 
to — because  Aggie  was  dead. 

All  at  once  he  raised  his  head?  he 
listened;  he  started  up  with  a  groan 


that  was  a  cry,  and  went  from  the 
room. 

Up-stairs  in  the  nursery  a  child's 
voice  was  singing: 

44 '  I   saw   a    ship   a-sailing,  a-sailing   on    the 

sea. 

And  it  was  full  of  pretty  things — for  Baby 
— and  for  me.'" 


THE   END 


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